Effect of Applied Current Density on the Corrosion Damage of Steel with Accelerated Electrochemical Test

In this study, we investigated the corrosion damage characteristics of steel for offshore wind turbine tower substructure using an accelerated electrochemical test. The galvanostatic corrosion test method was employed with a conventional 3 electrode cell in natural sea water, and the steel specimen was served as a working electrode to induce corrosion in an accelerated manner. Surface and cross-sectional image of the damaged area were obtained by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. The weight of the specimens was measured to determine the gravimetric change before and after corrosion test. The result revealed that the steel tended to suffer uniform corrosion rather than localized corrosion due to active dissolution reaction under the constant current regime. With increasing galvanostatic current density, the damage depth and surface roughness of surface was increased, showing approximately 25 times difference in damage depth between the lowest current density ($1mA/cm^2$) and the highest current density ($200mA/cm^2$). The gravimetric observation showed that the weight loss was proportionally increased with increment of current density that has 75 times different according by experimental conditions. Consequently, uniform corrosion of the steel specimen was conveniently induced by the electrochemically accelerated corrosion technique, and it was possible to control the extent of the corrosion damage by varying the current density.

전기화학적 가속 부식 평가법에서 강재의 부식 손상에 미치는 인가전류밀도의 영향