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The purpose of an accelerated corrosion test is to duplicate in the laboratory the field corrosion performance of a product. This provides scientists and engineers with a means of quickly developing new products. For many years the salt spray test has been used extensively for this purpose by researchers in the evaluation of new metallic coatings, new paint coatings, as well as testing miscellaneous types ofchemical treatments and paint pretreatments for use with metallic-coated steel sheet products.
Our corrosive test equipment allows replication of the most harsh environments in order to accelerate years worth of equivalent exposure into just days and weeks of quantitive testing.
Basically, the salt spray test procedure involves the spraying of a salt solution onto the samples being tested. This is done inside a temperature-controlled chamber. The solution is a 5% salt (sodium chloride - NaCl) solution. The samples under test are inserted into the chamber, following which the salt-containing solution is sprayed as a very fine fog mist over the samples. The temperature within the chamber is maintained at a constant level. Since the spray is continuous, the samples are constantly wet, and therefore, constantly subject to corrosion. Through the years, there have been some new twists added to better simulate special environmental conditions, but the most common procedure by far in North America is the test as described in ASTM B 117 Standard Practice for Operating Salt Spray (Fog) Apparatus.