PURE OIL Company’s Research and Development Laboratories are engaged in a variety of corrosion projects, one of the more general ones being a study of the effect of dissolved oxygen on corrosion and on cathodic protection. The interrelationship of corrosion rate of steel, dissolved oxygen concentration, agitation, electrode potential, and cathodic protection current density are being studied under controlled laboratory conditions. Another related subject being studied is differential aeration. The effect of variable oxygen concentrations, spatial relationships, and relative areas of anode and cathode are being determined.
The basic tool used in these studies is the temperature-compensated corrosion test probe, which was reported by these Laboratories in 1955.1 With this probe, it is possible to make continuous, direct observations of corrosion loss while the specimen or probe is immersed in a corrosive environment, without having to remove the specimen. While this method has disadvantages inherent in using small test...
