A Study on the Application of Cathodic Protection for Anti-Corrosion of Automobile Body

The use of cathodic protection for metals can be achieved by sacrificial anode CP or impressed current CP, or a combination of both. Cathodic protection is a highly effective anti-corrosion technique for submerged metals or metals in soil. But because the non-immersion atmospheric automobile environment is a high resistance environment, it is limited by fundamental cathodic protection. However, the application of cathodic protection to automobiles is attractive because of the possibility of maintaining corrosion resistance while using lower-cost materials. A commercially available product for automobiles that uses both sacrificial anode CP and impressed current CP was tested in a periodic salt spray environment to investigate the performance of the devices. Experimental results show that the metal to be protected has different anti-corrosion effects depending on the distance from the anode of the device, but it is effective for the entire 120 cm long specimen exposed with one anode. The cathodic protection is effective because the conductive tape attached to the anode of the structure to be protected acts as a constant electrolyte in wet and dry conditions. The results show that the entire standard passenger car can be protected by cathodic protection with 4 anodes.