Studies on the Construction Parameter of an Artificial Occluded Cell for In-situ Inspection of the Propagation Rate of Localized Corrosion

An artificial localized corrosion system is assembled and some parameters related to the localized corrosion in active dissolution state (i.e., non-passive state) have been studied. The results showed that the developed electrochemical system can satisfactorily imitate a naturally formed localized corrosion and the coupling current can indicate the maximum localized propagating rate. In this artificial system, the anodic dissolution reaction followed the auto-catalytic mechanism. The localized corrosion current density was dependent on the area ratio R of the cathode to the occluded anode. While R was equal to or more than 6, the coupling current reached at a maximum value and did not alter with the increase in R-value. Therefore, R=7 is chosen as one of these optimum parameters used in constructing the system, with which the biggest galvanic current might be obtained. In contrast, the thickness of the polymer filler separating the occluded anode area from the bulk electrolyte solution and the volume of the occluded anode area did not affect the corrosion current obviously. They might affect the response time to approach a steady state.