Case Studies in Corrosion

Corrosion at its basic form is the unintentional degradation of a material due to a reaction with the surrounding environment. With the costs of corrosion being well into the hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone, identification of the type of corrosion occurring is critical to both remediation and prevention. From a litigation perspective, the form of corrosion is also key to assigning responsibility as corrosion is tied to the behavior of the material in its environment. Correct material selection for the given environment is therefore paramount for avoiding the deleterious impact of corrosion. In this presentation, a brief introduction on the electrochemical corrosion mechanism is followed by two case studies. In these case studies, different corrosion scenarios based on the materials used and surrounding environment were observed. The methods used to identify the corrosion behavior are discussed with respect to the implications of the observed phenomenon.