Corrosion Kinetics Analysis of Low Alloy Steel Submitted to the Artificial Industrial Environment

Abstract

In this paper, the corrosion kinetics analysis of a low alloy steel submitted to an artificial industrial atmosphere is presented. To obtain the corrosion process model, the corrosion mass gain monitoring was first carried out and the kinetics analysis of the corrosion process using the bi-logarithmic equation was then performed. In addition, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was employed to investigate the rust morphology change during the corrosion process, and the results from this observation were also used to validate the models constructed by the bi-logarithmic equation. The results of corrosion mass gain monitoring showed that the corrosion process consists of two significant processes: accelerating corrosion process and decelerating corrosion process. The rust morphology observation indicated that the rust of steel was thin and not adherent to the substrate in the initial corrosion process, resulting in an accelerating corrosion process. However, when the rust became thicker and denser in the subsequent corrosion process, the corrosion rate decreased. Obviously, the change in the rust morphology greatly affected the corrosion kinetics. Hence, thefindings corresponded to the results obtained from the corrosion kinetics analysis. Therefore, the mathematics method obtained from the bi-logarithmic equation can be used as a useful approach for the corrosion study in the simulated industrial environment.