32 Carbon Steel—Corrosion by seawater.pdf

$2* Carbon Steel—Corrosion by Seawater I. MATSUSHIMA Maebashi Institute of Technology Maebashi, Japan A. INTRODUCTION Typical steel structures that are exposed to marine environments are marine piles, offshore structures, vessels, and other structures immersed in seawater. A steel structure in a marine environment may be exposed to five different corrosive zones depending on the position of its parts relative to sea level. The five zones are the atmospheric, splash, tidal, submerged, and seabed- embedded zones. The corrosion characteristics and corrosion behavior of steel are different in each zone. Some kinds of equipment, such as machinery and piping systems that use seawater for industrial purposes, are also subject to seawater corrosion. While well-established countermeasures are available against marine corrosion, such as application of coatings and cathodic protection, corrosion of bare steel in marine environments is important because some steel structures are used without protection and also because corrosion protection systems in marine environments are particularly susceptible to damage and deterioration, leaving considerable exposure time for corrosion before detection and repair. B. CORROSION BY CONTINUOUS IMMERSION IN SEAWATER 1. Environmental Factors The major variables that affect the corrosion rate of steel are salinity, dissolved oxygen concen- tration, temperature, pH, carbonate, pollutants, and biological organisms. The characteristics of seawater with respect to these variables are summarized in Table 1. Reviews of the variability in seawater at different global locations have been published by Dexter and Culberson [1], and by Dexter [2]. Corrosion of steel in seawater is controlled by the rate of supply of dissolved oxygen to the steel surface, similar to corrosion in fresh waters. The rate of oxygen supply, in turn, is determined by the oxygen concentration in the bulk seawater, the degree of movement of seawater, the diffusion coefficient for