Abstract:
Carbon steel, the most widely used engineering material, accounts for approximately
85%, of the annual steel production worldwide. Despite its relatively limited corrosion
resistance, carbon steel is used in large tonnages in marine applications, nuclear power
and fossil fuel power plants, transportation, chemical processing, petroleum
production and refining, pipelines, mining, construction and metal-processing
equipment. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of exposure level and
duration of exposure on corrosion rate of carbon steel. Two types of specimen which
is welded specimen and unwelded specimen were used for immersion testing in natural
seawater. Four different level which is atmospheric zone, tidal zone, fully submerged
zone and subsoil zone were used throughout the immersion test. The immersion test
result show that the welded specimen that conducted at tidal zone for duration of 1008
hours (42 days) have the highest corrosion rate which is 1.797 mm/year. Meanwhile,
the tensile test result show that the unwelded specimen at atmospheric zone have the
highest tensile strength which is 280.36 N/mm
2
after exposure in seawater for duration
of 1008 hours (42 days). The others factors that affecting and influence the corrosion
rate of welded and unwelded carbon steel were also discussed.
