1. Scope

Keywords

Rationale

The center punch is a handheld mechanical tool that can be used to indent the coated steel to induce corrosion and test the anti-corrosive behavior of a coating by making indents every 1 centimeter horizontally to account for any thickness gradient along the coated panel. Evaluate the length of the creepage from the indented site, taking an average to get about 6 data points from a 3 x 6-inch panel. Since the center punch is a mechanical tool, it removes/reduces the human error of scribing the coated panel. Blade strength and human error/biases can affect the results, so the center punch approach can be used to get consistent universal results. Corrosion resistance results can vary from industry to industry, but the results can be more reliable and versatile with this approach. A center punch is a low-cost and easy-to-obtain tool that any industry or university can obtain and use for anti-corrosion testing. The indentation depth can be adjusted based on the panel and coating thickness. Another reason to consider the center punch method is that coated panels can also have defects such as pinholes/orange peel, so results can vary; with the center punch approach, one can only focus on the indented site and avoid any random film defects.