Evaluation and Prediction of Corrosion Resistance of Epoxy Systems and Epoxy/Polyurethane Systems in Seawater Environment

Evaluation and Prediction of Corrosion Resistance of Epoxy Systems and Epoxy/Polyurethane Systems in Seawater Environment

Current coating practice requires the thickness of anti-corrosion organic coatings to be over $250{\mu}m$ for immersion parts of ships and offshore structures and the corrosion resistance of these coatings has been evaluated by destructive and qualitative analysis. Recently, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy(EIS) method has been employed, as an alternative, to evaluate corrosion resistance of organic coatings. This method is characterized as being nondestructive, reproducible, and quantitative in evaluating aging of organic coatings. In this study, EIS method was adopted to quantitatively and effectively select the coating systems having optimized protective performance. Evaluations of several epoxy and epoxy/polyurethane coating systems typically used for ships and offshore structures were carried out in wet($50^{\circ}C$, $90^{\circ}C$) and dry(room temp.) environments to accelerate the degradation of the organic coatings. These results were compared with the conventional scribed(scratched) test results. The plausible prediction model for determining the remaining life-time of coating systems was also proposed based on variations of impedance data, FT-IR and $T_g$ measurements results.