SYMPOSIA PAPER Published: 01 January 1973
STP37895S

Introduction to Corrosion

Source

Webster [1] defines corrosion as “the action or process of corrosive chemical change ⃨ a gradual wearing away or alteration by a chemical or electrochemical essentially oxidizing process as in the atmospheric rusting of iron.” This definition does not restrict corrosion to any one class of materials, nor to any one environment. It does, however, imply a degradation in properties through the reaction of a material with its surroundings. This environment may be liquid, gaseous, or even solid as in the case of the reaction of filaments of SiC with an aluminum matrix they are intended to reinforce. Although many such new corrosion reactions are being encountered as more complex materials are applied in increasingly varied and unusual situations, the problems associated with far more mundane and widespread corrosion reactions have by no means been satisfactorily solved. The formation of oxides on iron exposed to the atmosphere at both ambient and elevated temperatures, for example, in automobile mufflers, year after year continues to extract a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Considerable progress has been and continues to be made, however, in reducing these corrosion losses. It is to the further control and reduction of practical and industrially important corrosion problems that this manual is directed.

Author Information

Cocks, FH
Duke University, School of Engineering, Durham, N.C.
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Developed by Committee: G01
Pages: 3–41
DOI: 10.1520/STP37895S
ISBN-EB: 978-0-8031-5536-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-8031-0395-5