Skip to main content

Corrosion in daily life - Steel frames on a balcony

Image
By

Corrosion in daily life - Steel frames




Looking at LinkedIn, corrosion may feel like an extremely intricate issue seen in large industries.


However, looking around, we can see corrosion everywhere!

Where was this photo taken?

The photo above is of a steel frame attached to a balcony. 


The part shown here is the bottom part of the frame.

The coatings for such steel parts usually serve the purpose of moderate corrosion protection and more of aesthetics. If you observe, the thickness of the coatings also does not seem to be a lot.

Why did the coating degrade?

When it rains, the rainwater collects on the bottom of the frames. 


This degrades the coating. At the places where it is not perfect anyway, the underlying steel is free to corrode.

Most importantly, corrosion is more severe at the edges. It is severe enough to chip off the material entirely. That point is a prime site for crack formation and breaking of the frame.

Have you seen such corrosion in your balcony frame? Let me know in the comment section!

In the mean time, check out the free quizzes here!


😀Happy learning!😀



Labels:

Comments

  1. Metzilla29 July 2021 at 23:27

    A quick dose of daily corrosion. Thanks for posting ma'am.

    ReplyDelete
  2. KG Nair27 October 2021 at 11:18

    I would look in to it as forgotton phenomena. It is true that we see such instances in our day-to-life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr S D Ranade28 October 2021 at 10:55

      That is a great idea! Thank you for your suggestion!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Welcome to the CORROSPECTIVE BLOG! Scroll along for more posts! Looking forward to your feedback!
P.S. Don't forget to check out the free quizzes!

Popular posts from this blog

Corrosion rate and pipe design

By
Corrosion is a serious issue. However, corrosion engineers are rarely asked about it during the designing of components. It is only when the components fail that people remember there are people who have studied corrosion for their whole life and would provide a solution. The design problems are really quite simple, and the loss of money could have been avoided had the company bothered to involve a corrosion engineer in the first place. Let me illustrate this with an example of a factory near the sea. Suppose a mild steel pipe is fitted inside the factory to transport 1 wt. % hydrochloric acid. The engineer has a choice between selecting pipes of 5 mm and 10 mm thickness. To save money, they go for the pipe with the 5 mm thickness because it has been 'successfully used by the other customers'. Over the course of a year, it is seen that the pipe has started leaking at certain places. Further investigation reveals that those sections have thinned to half of their thickn...
Post a Comment
Read more

The drain mystery

By
I recently moved to a new house. As expected, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. One of the tasks was the cleaning of the washbasin. Usually, the drain is a circular part with  5 to 6 holes for the water to flow out. What I saw was this - I have not had a chance to analyse the material of the drain. However, a quick search tells me that this is most probably stainless steel. The water that this drain is exposed to is the bore water. Thus, the drain has encountered a lot of chlorides. There is general as well as localized corrosion. The damage started off as a simple process of pitting. Pitting due to chlorides is one of the most common headaches for poor stainless steel. They break the passive oxide film, and reach the underlying fresh iron. This iron then reacts with the usual suspects (ions, oxygen, water) and forms what we see as the rust. As can be seen in the picture, the thin sections of the drain between the holes have disappeared in three places. This may have h...
Post a Comment
Read more

3 steps to begin experiments...aka...I am lost in this lab!

By
  All the students in the first few days of research are faced with the dilemma of the right time and way to begin experimentation. There are as many ways and thought processes to do so as there are people. I will share my learnings here. The problem is that the literature review tends to become so vast that it is difficult to decide what the exact problem is. 1. The best way is to NOT WAIT for the literature review to get over. Begin with the experiments simultaneously. Gain experience on as many new techniques as possible. 2. Start with that research paper which will most likely form the basis of your work. Attempt to reproduce the experiments in the paper. Try to see what other experiments can corroborate those results. 3. Select the correct research papers to continue the literature review. P.S. All the experiments should have a reason for doing them. You should be able to answer the question 'Why should I do this experiment? What will I learn?'
Post a Comment
Read more