Five year observations of corrosion losses for steels at a severe marine atmospheric site

Comprehensive new data for the effects of orientation, height and bold exposure versus shielding effects and detailed chronological observations and variability data for nominally identical exposures of mild steel coupons all exposed at one site is presented. Previous investigations have been reported only for different sites and this raises difficulties in making comparisons and deductions. The present results have been obtained under the one local climatic regime for all coupons, thus providing a much more controlled environment within which to compare various effects. The present paper deals with the five-year results and compares these with information available in the literature. After three years most of the boldly exposed double-sided coupons had completely corroded but many singlesided coupons remained viable. The difference in corrosion behaviour between individual coupons exposed at different heights and vertical continuous single strips of steel is described. Moreover, the difference in corrosion losses for a continuous strip and for a series of coupons oriented in different directions is described. Furthermore, variability of nominally identically exposed coupons is reported.