Field analysis and corrosion simulation for the material selection of decoupling elements

Flexible, gas-tight metallic ducts are designed to decouple the movements and vibrations between the vehicle’s combustion engine and its exhaust line. These decouplers have to withstand extremely high operational stresses: With gas temperatures up to 1000 °C, their thin-walled components are exposed to a combination of large deformations and corrosive salt spray attack. As there is only very few literature available on the corrosion behavior of materials under these loads, the company Witzenmann presents a procedure how a material selection can be executed.