Large scale corrosion tests

Corrosion effects of large scale specimens exposed under Baltic sea water conditions were examined in CTO floating corrosion laboratory. The tested specimens were in the form of box girders simulating the midship section and they were exposed in flowing fresh Baltic Sea water. The corrosion rate of carbon steel exposed in sea water Under natural conditions is very low so it was necessary to increase the corrosion rate to observe a significant reduction of plate thickness during the experiments. The corrosion rate was increased by modification of physical and chemical parameters of the tested systems, The modification consisted of increasing the sea water temperature and its agitation. Anodic electric Current supplied by all external source was used in some cases. The influence of anodic Current oil the corrosion phenomenon was modeled with the boundary element method using isoparametric elements. The corrosion rate distribution oil the box girders' surfaces was modeled with back propagation artificial neural networks.