Electrochemical noise measurements -: Innovation in corrosion testing

There are a lot of approved and standardized methods available for corrosion testing which have found wide application. Salt-spray testing, electrochemical polarization techniques and exposure tests in specific test media belong to these. Nevertheless, some questions remain unanswered and requirements unsatisfied. In particular, both the start of corrosion and the way it proceeds with time can often be examined only to an insufficient extent. Furthermore, the requirements of practical test conditions, acceptable effort and expenditure and shorter test durations lead to continuous development of these test methods. Within corrosion research, the analysis of electrochemical noise offers a simple, sensitive and virtually non-destructive measuring technique for assessment of the corrosion susceptibility of metallic materials and for the investigation of corrosion processes. The present status of knowledge concerning noise diagnostics in corrosion processes permits the application of this method not only to experimental tasks in the laboratory, but also to special problems in the context of practical corrosion monitoring. Furthermore, specific advantages of the technique enable its use to an increasing extent in supporting or improving conventional corrosion testing. The advantages here include obtaining additional information and shortening testing times (together with associated savings in resources such as manpower, energy, chemical reagents, etc.), thus resulting in state-of-the art corrosion testing.