Application of steel thin film electrical resistance sensor for in situ corrosion monitoring

By Li, SeonYeob; Kim, Young-Geun; Jung, Sungwon; Song, Hong-Seok & Lee, Seong-Min
Published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical NULL 2007

Abstract

The corrosion sensor should have high sensitivity enough to measure the corrosion rate in mild corrosive environments and the ability to detect the corrosion mechanism. Therefore, our goal is to develop and apply a steel thin film electrical resistance (TFER) sensor based on the measurement of changes in electrical resistance of the sensing elements in order to follow the corrosion of steel in a wide range of environments. The sensor with a thickness of 600 nm is fabricated by DC magnetron sputter deposition of steel on an Al2O3 substrate, followed by silk screen printing to improve the sensitivity of the sensor, especially to measure the corrosion rate in low corrosive environments such as anoxic corrosion in neutral solutions, steel protected by protective measures like a corrosion inhibitor or cathodic protection, and atmospheric corrosion. The sensor also has multiple-line sensing elements to detect the localized corrosion of steel. The TFER sensor is laboratory and field tested. All the studies demonstrate that the newly developed TFER sensor can be a promising and reliable tool for corrosion monitoring of steel exposed to various environments.

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