Study on Atmospheric Corrosion for Two Different Marine Environments in India

In any developing nation major investment goes for infrastructure and it is not exception in India. Good numbers of buildings, bridges, shopping malls, car parks etc. are coming up with steel for sustainable development. Thus protecting the structures from corrosion are the challenges faced by professionals for all types of steel structures. About 3% of GDP is accounted for loss due to corrosion. To combat this up to date corrosion map is called for as the country has wide variation of climatic zones with vastcoastline. Logically organic paint system can be prescribed based on the corrosion rate on bare steel with respect to environment. Present paper will emphasis on the study conducted on two types of structural steel coated with organic paint located in twomarine environment having been exposed for three years, Test coupons made from steels both bare and coated are deployed at two field stations having marine (Digha) and industrial marine (Channai) environments. Various tests like AC impedance DC corrosion, polarisation, salt spray test, $SO_2$ chamber and Raman spectroscopy were carried out both in laboratory on fresh as well as coupons collected from exposure sites. Rust formed on the bare and scribed coated coupons are investigated. It is found that normal marine environment at Digha exhibits higher corrosion rate than polluted marine environment in Channai. Rust analysis indicates formation of ${\propto}$-FeoOH protects or reduces corrosion rate at Channai and formation of non-protective ${\gamma}$-FeoOH increases corrosion rate at Digha. The slower corrosion rate in Channai than at Digha is attributed due to availability of $SO_2$, in the environment, which converts non‐protective rust ${\gamma}$-FeoOH to protective rust ${\propto}$-FeoOH. While comparing the damage on the coated panels it is found that low alloy structural steel provides less damage than plain carbon steel. From the experimentations a suitable paint system specification is drawn for identical environments for low medium and high durability.