How to Choose the Right Nickel Alloy Product

When a specialty alloy is needed and your more commonly used alloys won’t perform in a highly corrosive environment, the experts turn to INCONEL Alloy C-276, a highly refined specialty alloy that is ideally suited for highly corrosive environments.

Traditionally, alloys such as INCONEL 625 have been well suited for use in the oil and gas production industry with their excellent resistance to corrosion from organic and mineral acids, where they have proven their worth time and again at temperatures up to 950°C.

However, these alloys can’t withstand the harsher, more aggressive environments found in the chemical processing and pharmaceutical industries. INCONEL® Alloy C-276 has excellent resistance to sulfuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids, and is one of the few nickel alloys that can withstand wet chlorine gas, acidic chlorides, and chlorine solutions.

INCONEL Alloy C-276 Composition

When you take a metaphorical look under the hood, you begin to understand why this alloy is so resistant to the most corrosive, harshest environments known to man. The alloy consists of a mixture of nickel and molybdenum, with additions of tungsten chromium, iron, and cobalt. This composition makes INCONEL Alloy C-276 highly resistant to general corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, pitting and crevice corrosion.

In addition, the alloy’s low carbon content minimizes grain boundary carbide precipitation, allowing it to maintain high resistance within the heat-affected zone of welded joints. This provides INCONEL Alloy C-276 with additional versatility and service life – perhaps the key to its success in the global market.

Offshore Oil and Gas Benefits

INCONEL Alloy C-276 has not only proven to be a very popular choice in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, but it is also being used more and more frequently in the petrochemical industry – especially offshore drilling. When alloys such as INCONEL 625, MONEL 400 and 316 stainless steel were subjected to seawater corrosion in crevice conditions, INCONEL C-276 once again emerged as the clear winner.

Nickel, chromium and molybdenum alloys have very low corrosion rates in marine environments, whether under flowing or stagnant conditions. In particular, INCONEL Alloy C-276 resists stress corrosion cracking in chloride-containing water, especially in crevice conditions.

With a cost comparable to INCONEL 625, INCONEL Alloy C-276 is increasingly seen as a viable option for long-term processing of crude oil in the Far East and India, where oil reserves are primarily offshore, compared to oil in the Middle East, which is primarily on land. INCONEL Alloy C-276 is considered more durable and cost-effective than other more traditional alloys.

INCONEL Alloy C-276 is available in seamless, welded pipe, and fittings in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. If you would like to discuss INCONEL C-276 with Julie from the Gaosheng team, please contact Julie@gaoshengpipe.com

For technical specifications on this popular alloy, please visit the Grades section of the https://www.gaoshengpipe.com website.