This is the first in a pair of papers describing the development of the computational corrosion analysis accomplished at the Naval Underwater Systems Center and the University of Connecticut over the past decade. This paper outlines the mathematical representation of the corrosion problem to be solved in terms of the partial differential equation which describe electric fields in a conductive medium and the boundary conditions which describe the nonlinear electrode kinetics of corroding metals.
A particular finite element formulation was developed to preserve charge conservation, a required condition to include mixed potential theory in electrochemical modeling. The mathematics analogy between electrical and thermal conduction was identified and a commercially available heat conduction computer program was selected and modified for electrochemical analysis by programming for the particular boundary conditions representing nonlinear electrode kinetics.
