Corrosion involves the deterioration of a material as it reacts with its environment.

Corrosion is the primary means by which metals deteriorate. Corrosion literally

consumes the material reducing load carrying capability and causing stress
concentrations. Corrosion is often a major part of maintenance cost and corrosion
prevention is vital in many designs. Corrosion is not expressed in terms of a design
property value like other properties but rather in more qualitative terms such as a
material is immune, resistant, susceptible or very susceptible to corrosion.

Note that aluminum, as indicated by its position in the series, is a relatively reactive metal; among structural metals,
only beryllium and magnesium are more reactive. Aluminum owes its excellent corrosion resistance to the barrier
oxide film that is bonded strongly to the surface and if damaged reforms immediately in most environments. On a
surface freshly abraded and exposed to air, the protective film is only 10 Angstroms thick but highly effective at
protecting the metal from corrosion.

The basic principles of corrosion that were just covered, generally apply to all
corrosion situation except certain types of high temperature corrosion. However, the
process of corrosion can be very straightforward but is often very complex due to
variety of variable that can contribute to the process. A few of these variable are the
composition of the material acting in the corrosion cell, the heat treatment and stress
state of the materials, the composition of the electrolyte, the distance between the
anode and the cathode, temperature, protective oxides and coating, etc.

Types of Corrosion
Corrosion is commonly classified based on the appearance of the corroded material.
The classifications used vary slightly from reference to reference but there is generally
considered to be eight different forms of corrosion. There forms are:

Uniform or general corrosion that is distributed more or less uniformly over a

surface.

Localized corrosion that is confined to small area. Localized corrosion often occurs
due to a concentrated cell. A concentrated cell is an electrolytic cell in which the
electromotive force is caused by a concentration of some components in the
electrolyte. This difference leads to the formation of distinct anode and cathode
regions.

Pitting corrosion that is confined to small areas and take the form of cavities
on a surface.
 Crevice corrosion occurring at locations where easy access to the bulk
environment is prevented, such as the mating surfaces of two components.

Filiform Corrosion that occurs under some coatings in the form of randomly
distributed threadlike filaments.

Intergranular preferential corrosion at or along the grain boundaries of a metal.

Exfoliation a specific form of corrosion that travels along grain boundaries

parallel to the surface of the part causing lifting and flaking at the surface. The
corrosion products expand between the uncorroded layers of metal to produce a
look that resembles pages of a book. Exfoliation corrosion is associated with
sheet, plate and extruded products and usually initiates at unpainted or unsealed
edges or holes of susceptible metals.

Galvanic corrosion associated primarily with the electrical coupling of materials

with significantly different electrochemical potentials.

Environmental Cracking brittle fracture of a normally ductile material that occurs

partially due to the corrosive effect of an environment.

Corrosion fatigue fatigue cracking that is characterized by

uncharacteristically short initiation time and/or growth rate due to the damage
of corrosion or buildup of corrosion products.

High temperature hydrogen attack the loss of strength and ductility of steel
due to a high temperature reaction of absorbed hydrogen with carbides. The
result of the reaction is decarburization and internal fissuring.

Hydrogen Embrittlement the loss of ductility of a metal resulting from

absorption of hydrogen.

Liquid metal cracking cracking caused by contact with a liquid metal.

Stress corrosion cracking of a metal due to the combined action of corrosion

and a residual or applied tensile stress.

Erosion corrosion a corrosion reaction accelerated by the relative movement of a

corrosive fluid and a metal surface.
Fretting corrosion damage at the interface of two contacting surfaces under load
but capable of some relative motion. The damage is accelerated by movement at the
interface that mechanically abraded the surface and exposes fresh material to
corrosive attack.

Dealloying the selective corrosion of one or more components of a solid solution

alloy.

Dezincification corrosion resulting in the selective removal of zinc from

copper-zinc alloys.

Stress
The term stress (s) is used to express the loading in terms of force applied to a certain
cross-sectional area of an object. From the perspective of loading, stress is the applied
force or system of forces that tends to deform a body. From the perspective of what is
happening within a material, stress is the internal distribution of forces within a body
that balance and react to the loads applied to it. The stress distribution may or may not
be uniform, depending on the nature of the loading condition. For example, a bar
loaded in pure tension will essentially have a uniform tensile stress distribution.
However, a bar loaded in bending will have a stress distribution that changes with
distance perpendicular to the normal axis.

Simplifying assumptions are often used to represent stress as a vector quantity for
many engineering calculations and for material property determination. The
word "vector" typically refers to a quantity that has a "magnitude" and a "direction".
For example, the stress in an axially loaded bar is simply equal to the applied force
divided by the bar's cross-sectional area.
Some common measurements of stress are:
Psi = lbs/in2 (pounds per square inch)
ksi or kpsi = kilopounds/in2 (one thousand or 103 pounds per square inch)
Pa = N/m 2 (Pascals or Newtons per square meter)
kPa = Kilopascals (one thousand or 103 Newtons per square meter)
GPa = Gigapascals (one million or 106 Newtons per square meter)
*Any metric prefix can be added in front of psi or Pa to indicate the multiplication
factor

It must be noted that the stresses in most 2-D or 3-D solids are actually more complex
and need be defined more methodically. The internal force acting on a small area of a
plane can be resolved into three components: one normal to the plane and two parallel
to the plane. The normal force component divided by the area gives the normal stress
(s), and parallel force components divided by the area give the shear stress (t). These
stresses are average stresses as the area is finite, but when the area is allowed to
approach zero, the stresses become stresses at a point. Since stresses are defined in
relation to the plane that passes through the point under consideration, and the number
of such planes is infinite, there appear an infinite set of stresses at a point. Fortunately,
it can be proven that the stresses on any plane can be computed from the stresses on
three orthogonal planes passing through the point. As each plane has three stresses,
the stress tensor has nine stress components, which completely describe the state of
stress at a point.

Strain
Strain is the response of a system to an applied stress. When a material is loaded with
a force, it produces a stress, which then causes a material to deform. Engineering
strain is defined as the amount of deformation in the direction of the applied force
divided by the initial length of the material. This results in a unitless number, although
it is often left in the unsimplified form, such as inches per inch or meters per meter.
For example, the strain in a bar that is being stretched in tension is the amount of
elongation or change in length divided by its original length. As in the case of stress,
the strain distribution may or may not be uniform in a complex structural element,
depending on the nature of the loading condition.
If the stress is small, the material may only strain a small amount and the material will
return to its original size after the stress is released. This is called elastic deformation,
because like elastic it returns to its unstressed state. Elastic deformation only occurs in
a material when stresses are lower than a critical stress called the yield strength. If a
material is loaded beyond it elastic limit, the material will remain in a deformed
condition after the load is removed. This is called plastic deformation.

Engineering and True Stress and Strain

The discussion above focused on engineering stress and strain, which use the fixed,
undeformed cross-sectional area in the calculations. True stress and strain measures
account for changes in cross-sectional area by using the instantaneous values for the
area. The engineering stress-strain curve does not give a true indication of the
deformation characteristics of a metal because it is based entirely on the original
dimensions of the specimen, and these dimensions change continuously during the
testing used to generate the data.

Stress Concentration
When an axial load is applied to a piece of material with a uniform cross-section, the
norm al stress will be uniformly distributed over the cross-section. However, if a hole
is drilled in the material, the stress distribution will no longer be uniform. Since the
material that has been removed from the hole is no longer available to carry any load,
the load must be redistributed over the remaining material. It is not redistributed
evenly over the entire remaining cross-sectional area but instead will be redistributed
in an uneven pattern that is highest at the edges of the hole as shown in the image.
This phenomenon is known as stress concentration.

Tensile properties indicate how the material will react to forces being applied in
tension. Tensile tests are used to determine the modulus of elasticity, elastic limit,
elongation, proportional limit, and reduction in area, tensile strength, yield point, yield
strength and other tensile properties.

Linear-Elastic Region and Elastic Constants

In this region of the curve, when the stress is reduced, the material will return to its
original shape. In this linear region, the line obeys the relationship defined
as Hooke's Law where the ratio of stress to strain is a constant.

The slope of the line in this region where stress is proportional to strain and is called
the modulus of elasticity or Young's modulus. The modulus of elasticity (E) defines
the properties of a material as it undergoes stress, deforms, and then returns to its
original shape after the stress is removed.

Yield Point. The yield strength is defined as the stress required producing a small,
amount of plastic deformation.

Some materials such as gray cast iron or soft copper exhibit essentially no linear-
elastic behavior. For these materials the usual practice is to define the yield strength as
the stress required to produce some total amount of strain.

True elastic limit is a very low value and is related to the motion of a few
hundred dislocations. Micro strain measurements are required to detect strain
on order of 2 x 10 -6 in/in.

Proportional limit is the highest stress at which stress is directly proportional to

strain. It is obtained by observing the deviation from the straight-line portion of
the stress-strain curve.

Elastic limit is the greatest stress the material can withstand without any
measurable permanent strain remaining on the complete release of load.

Yield strength is the stress required to produce a small-specified amount of

plastic deformation.