Corrosion Prevention

Speculating about where the future of the field of corrosion prevention, detection, and rehabilitation might lead is interesting—but not without risk. We all are aware of the revolution in electronics, particularly digital electronics, and information science during the past 20 years. We also should recognize that materials science and technology have undergone a major revolution, bringing us new materials such as plastics, ceramics, and chemicals. The construction industry also has made major advances in automation, equipment, and process control. All of these disciplines will affect the highway construction and maintenance industry during the next few decades. It is against this backdrop that we consider the future of corrosion prevention. Corrosion is the reaction between a material and its environment. Perhaps the best known example of corrosion is steel; as soon as iron ore has been smelted and refined to produce steel, nature begins to reverse the process. The steel reacts with the environment to form products such as oxides, sulfates, sulfides, and chlorides that no longer have the required physical and chemical properties. All materials react to some degree in some environments, and one of the responsibilities of the corrosion engineer is to identify materials that will provide the desired life in a given service environment at a reasonable cost. Billions of dollars are spent every year in protecting against, investigating, repairing, and replacing damage due to corrosion. Occasionally, corrosion-induced failures are catastrophic; more often, corrosion is a slow process that can be detected before failure occurs. Therefore, the consequences usually are economic rather than life-threatening.