The corrosion behavior and mechanism of X52 steel at an elbow of loop system based on array electrode technology were investigated to determine the correlation between the corrosion behavior and flow velocity, shear stress and the volume fraction of particles by electrochemical techniques, computational fluid dynamics simulation and surface analysis. The results show that the distribution of corrosion rate is in good accordance with the distribution of the volume fraction of CaSO4 particles at the elbow, and the higher corrosion rate corresponds to the bigger volume fraction of CaSO4 particles. The minimum corrosion rate appears at the innermost side of the elbow, the location with the minimum volume fraction of CaSO4 particles. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.