Why is Corrosive Testing Essential for Industrial Sectors?

Suppose a wrong coating is chosen on the manufacturing components and parts. In that case, it can prove to be disastrous and might also lead to continuous repair work and replacement, leading to the downtime of the equipment and causing production loss.

As such, it is essential to conduct sufficient tests before selecting the coating as it will allow you to determine how effective the coating will be in a specific environmental situation. Without testing, one cannot determine how corrosive elements in the surrounding will impact the potential of the equipment.
Various forms of corrosion can affect the pieces of equipment and lead to a decrease in their efficiency; hence, determining the type of corrosion testing is essential for each piece of equipment. Before delving into various tests, let us understand the types of corrosion; some are explained below.

• Uniform General Corrosion

  It is the most common form of corrosion and easily preventable. This occurs when the equipment is exposed to widespread chemicals, weather, and other elements that cause corrosion across entirely exposed equipment.

• High-Temperature Corrosion

  The equipment exposure to a highly corrosive substance at high temperature during the combustion like the furnace or an automobile engine will cause corrosion to the specific type of the metal, which would normally be considered as corrosive resistant.

• Local Corrosion

  This corrosion occurs in a particular area of the metal where the corrosion protection layer fails. It is improperly applied, for instance, on a crevice or a hole and threatens the integrity of the metal surface. It is challenging to detect such corrosion sometimes until the component fails.

• Alloy Corrosion

  When corrosive elements target a component of the alloy, this corrosion occurs; it is also known as de-alloying. Alloys are created to avoid specific corroding in portions by providing them properties so that the destabilization of the entire component doesn’t take place.

• Environmental

  Many environmental factors cause corrosion during the original manufacturing process and exposure during the operation. Factors like stress, chemical exposures, pressure, welding, vibrations, machining, etc., the list is long, which can cause the cracking of the equipment.

• Galvanic Corrosion

  When two different forms of metals come in contact, one will act as a cathode and another as an anode. Due to the electrochemical reaction, the metal acting as anode will be corroding at a faster rate.

• Flow assisted corrosion

  When the corrosive resistant coating on the surface of the metal body gets eroded away by a continuous flow of water or air, the metal gets exposed to various atmospherical factors causing the corrosion. This type of corrosion is usually seen in boats and airplanes if their bodies are not recoated at regular intervals.

• Fretting Corrosion

  This is one of the most common corrosion seen in industrial pieces of equipment. As the machinery components conduct intense and repeatable operations, fretting happens when the wearing down of the surface happens due to actions like vibration, extreme impact, and rubbing of the components.

Corrosion Testing is done thoroughly by most industrial sectors to ensure that the raw materials utilized will perform safely and have a long service life as it often depends upon the application they are being utilized for. Some of the industrial sectors are mentioned below, where corrosion testing is mandatory.

• Aviation industry

  This sector requires corrosion testing to ensure that the aircraft components are reliable throughout their service life. Environmental recreations like temperature, corrosive atmosphere, humidity, etc., allow engineers to study equipment’s reliability and render their guarantee regarding the material handling strength of the aircraft components manufactured.

• Automotive Industry

  The parts used in an automobile should be able to withstand extreme temperatures, unfreezing compounds, stormy weather, and exposure to oil, fuel, and various other chemicals. Hence, endurance automobile parts undergo widespread testing to ensure that they are in working condition even when facing an adverse environment.

• Medical industry

  The standards reliability for medical pieces of equipment are quite high, and there is zero room for any sort of error for medical pieces of equipment and devices. The material used for building these pieces of equipment needs to withstand harsh disinfectants, biological elements, and other corrosive risks.

  The implants created must resist the substance within the body which will attack it. To study the unexpected corrosion, we can infer where the component might fail; potential electrochemical studies are used.

• Other Industries

  Some industries like automation, aerospace and medications are far more dependent on corrosion testing for their pieces of equipment.

Further, some other industries like industrial process, energy, marine, defense, etc., rely on these types of testing to ensure the reliability and durability of the pieces of equipment they will be using in an exposed and hazardous environment.
As they may vary in temperature and components may be exposure to saltwater, dust, sand, chemicals, and other corrosive elements present in the atmosphere.

Labs will offer various types of testing like passivation, salt spray and cyclic corrosion testing, and mercurous nitrate testing, which helps the industry choose the proper raw material for their components.

With the help of these lab reports, an engineer will be able to predict the reliability and durability of the component and the parts’ life service. Also, determine in which environment it is safe to use to improve the machine’s life expectancy.