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

A large scale atmospheric corrosion trial extending over five years is currently being conducted at Belmont Beach near Newcastle, Australia. The intent is to obtain information about the effects of orientation, height and bold exposure versus shielding effects as well as detailed chronological observations and variability data for nominally identical exposures. Such comprehensive data has not previously been obtained for the one site and under the one local climatic regime for all coupons. This provides a much better and more controlled environment in which to compare the various effects. Failure to achieve this in previous studies renders the study of such influences problematic. Also, variability of nominally identically exposed coupons has not previously been given attention. The paper deals with the three-year results and compares these with information available in the literature. After three years most of the boldly exposed coupons have completely corroded but most of the single sided coupons remain in varying degrees. A comparison is given between individual coupons exposed at different heights and single strips of steel exposed over the same vertical distance.