Kinetics of atmospheric corrosion of mild steel, zinc, galvanized iron and aluminium at 10 exposure stations in India

As a part of updating Corrosion Map of India project, atmospheric corrosion behaviour of commercially available engineering materials such as mild steel, galvanized iron, zinc and aluminium metals was studied in marine, industrial, urban, and rural environments by weight loss method at 10 exposure stations in India over a period of 5 years. The results of these studies demonstrated that galvanized iron, zinc and aluminium metals were several times more durable than mild steel. Compared to galvanized iron and zinc, aluminium provided superior protection in industrial and marine environment except at Mormugao Port Trust (MPT). It also offered much better resistance to corrosion in rural environments. At certain places, galvanized iron proved to be more durable than aluminium. The results obeyed well with the empirical kinetics equation of the form C = Ktn, where K and C are the corrosion losses in μm after 1 and ‘t’ years of the exposure, respectively, and ‘n’ is a constant. Based on ‘n’ values, the corrosion mechanisms of these metals are predicted. The corrosion products formed on the metal samples in Chennai marine atmosphere were identified by X-ray diffraction analysis.