Metallic bipolar plates are one of the promising alternatives to the graphite bipolar plates in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems. In this study, stainless steel (SS304, SS316L, and SS430), nickel (Ni 270), and titanium (Grade 2 Ti) plates with and initial thickness of 51 mu m were experimented as bipolar plate substrate materials in corrosion resistance tests. In addition to unformed blanks, SS316L plates were formed with stamping and hydroforming processes to obtain bipolar plates under different process conditions (stamping force, hydroforming pressure, stamping speed, hydroforming pressure rate). These bipolar plates, then, were subjected to corrosion tests, and the results were presented of metallic bipolar plates by simulating the anodic and cathodic environments in the PEMFC. In order to determine the statistical significance of the corrosion resistance differences between different manufacturing conditions, analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique was used on the corroision current density (I-corr, mu A cm(-2)) values obtained from experiments. ANOVA for the unformed substrate materials indicated that SS430 and Ni have less corrosion resistance than the other substrate materials tested. There was a significant difference between blank (unformed) and stamped SS316L plates only in the anodic environment. Although there was no noteworthy difference between unformed and hydroformed specimens for SS316L material, neither of these materials meet the Department of Energy's (DOE) target corrosion rate of <= 1 mu A cm(-2) by 2015 without coating. Finally, stamping parameters (i.e. speed and force levels) and hydroforming parameters (i.e. the pressure and pressure rate) significantly affected the corrosion behavior of bipolar plates. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.