The Importance of Corrosion Monitoring Technology

I. WHY CORROSION MONITORING

Corrosion cost the process industries an estimated $300 billion dollars a year in lost production, equipment failure, and fines for environmental and safety violations (Avery, 2008). Losses in money, time and equipment made it important to study the corrosion and look for ways to stop it or control it. But since corrosion is a natural problem, it means that we can't totally stop it from happening, but we can try to control it. This fact led to the technology of corrosion monitoring which on the other hand started to undergo development by taking different approaches, considerations and ideas to control the corrosion problem. The author of the book "Corrosion for Everyone", Groysman, A. implied that it is impossible to prevent corrosion of many metals because they are thermodynamically unstable in the environment. And then he suggested studying the materials to see how long the equipment or structure will serve safely and efficiently under particular conditions. In other words, knowing the corrosion rate and corrosion type helps in predicting the life longevity of the equipment and in evaluating when to carry out shutdowns, repairs, or replace the equipment (2009). Another source defines the word corrosion as the breakdown of an engineered material due to chemical reactions with its surroundings and in the most common use of the word corrosion, it means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with oxygen or in general with an oxidant. Formation of an oxide of iron due to oxidation is an example of corrosion and is commonly known as rusting. In other words, corrosion is the wearing away of metals due to a chemical reaction. So, in order to stop the wearing away of the engineered metals, certain m...

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