It has been debated in the past whether, in turbulent flow, the hydrodynamic wall-shear stress can
mechanically remove or damage a protective iron carbonate layer formed on mild steel in a CO2
corrosion environment. In this study, the mechanical strength of the iron carbonate layer was measured
by a tensile machine. It was shown that the adhesion strength between the iron carbonate layer and the
steel substrate is in excess of 10 MPa, which is many orders of magnitude larger than the typical wallshear
stress found in turbulent flow. Experiments conducted in a small scale single-phase flow loop
confirmed that the iron carbonate layer could not be removed mechanically.
KEY WORDS: adhesion strength, iron carbonate (FeCO3) layer, mechanical layer removal, CO2 corrosion, thin channel, hydrodynamic force, wall-shear stress