Abstract
IRON or zinc partially immersed in sodium or potassium chloride at first remains unattacked at the water-line. Corrosion occurs at a zone somewhat below the water-line, and research es at Cambridge1 have indicated it to be connected with the electric current flowing between this zone as anode and a cathodic zone at the water-line, where oxygen, the cathodic stimulator, can most easily be renewed. The corrosion rate has been found to be approximately equivalent, in the sense of Faraday's Law, to this current, which, for solutions of high conductivity, may approach the limiting value given by the intersection of the anodic and cathodic polarization curves; for less conducting liquids, it is that value i, which will make an intercept iR, where R is the resistance. Thus the short-period phenomena have been fairly well cleared up. However, the long-period corrosion researches of Bengough and Wormwell2 at Teddington have shown that finally both metals became more attack at the water-line than anywhere else. The violent attack at the zone previously immune tended to suggest that the mechanism of corrosion in the later stages was different from that in the early stages ; but by introducing the essential distinction between probability and conditional velocity3, a common explanation appears for the seemingly divergent facts.
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Evans, U. R., J. Inst. Met., 30, 257 (1923); Evans, U. R., and Hoar, T. P., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 137, 343 (1932); Agar, J. N., unpublished work summarized by Evans, U. R., J. Iron Steel Inst., 141, 221P (1940).
Bengough, G. D., and Wormwell, F., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 140, 402 (1933); Chem. Ind., 262 (1936).
Evans, U. R., Mears, R. B., and Queneau, P., Engineering, 136, 689 (1933); Evans, U. R., and Mears, R. B., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 146, 164 (1934); Trans. Faraday Soc., 31, 530 (1935).
Evans, U. R., Bannister, L. C., and Britton, S. C., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 131, 366 (1931); Evans, U. R., and Hoar, T. P., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 137, 358 (1932).
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EVANS, U. Distribution of Attack on Iron or Zinc Partly Immersed in Chloride Solutions. Nature 150, 151 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150151a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150151a0
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