Corrosion Behavior of Galvanized Steel in Simulated Ocean Atmosphere

A alternate salt-spray/dry accelerated corrosion facility was set up to simulate the corro- sive ocean atmosphere and then with which the corrosion behavior of galvanized steel was studied by means of electrochemical measurement, XRD, SEM and EDAX analysis. The results show that the corrosion resistance of galvanized steel varied with the progress of corrosion process, which de- clined firstly at the beginning stage, then ascended in the intermediary stage and declined again in the final stage. Correspondingly a yellow rust composed mainly of α- FeOOH appeared firstly, which induced positive effect on the corrosion resistance of galvanized steel, later corrosion prod- ucts γ-FeOOH and β-FeOOH successively appeared, which induced negative effect on the corro- sion resistance of galvanized steel.