Monel resists reducing conditions, while the stainless steels resist oxidizing.
"You see, wire telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? Radio operates the same way: You send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is there is no cat." A. Einstein
The combination of chlorination and Monel would rule out MIC - between the chlorine and the copper the bugs would not stand much chance. The water composition shouldn't cause too much bother to the alloy (assumed to be 400). It leaves either the NiAlBr, or the graphite, to induce galvanic corrosion. Thus, I would lean toward graphite contamination as a factor, but it's down to a proper analysis to make the call; we can't do it with pictures on the internet.
Clay - did you ever do EDS and XRD as Brimstoner suggested?
Also: I had the impression that copper was as susceptible to MIC as any other alloy except titanium, and presence of chlorides in a moist environment would not kill the bugs. Steve, can you provide a reference I can look at to learn more about this?
It's not chlorides - it's chlorine, present from the hypochlorite treatment, i.e. disinfection. Copper is a known biocide which is why it is used in antifouling systems. However, we can theorise until the cows come home; someone has to make a decent failure analysis since the internet can't do it.
This won't warrant failure analysis as we don't use that material anymore...we're now using xm19. Galvanic seems to make the most sense given the materials nvolved. Thanks for the input.
