Influence of climatic factors in cyclic accelerated corrosion test towards the development of a reliable and repeatable accelerated corrosion test for the automotive industry

Two designs of experiments made of nine accelerated tests each were used in order to study the influence of a selection of important climatic parameters such as the concentration of NaCl, the drying level, the basic humidity cycle, the frequency of salt spray and the temperature. The accelerated corrosion tests were all performed using automatic chambers. Different automotive materials were selected in order to study the resistance to cosmetic corrosion, perforation corrosion and bi‐metallic corrosion. For cosmetic materials, coated panels of cold rolled steel (CRS), zinc‐coated steel and aluminium alloys were chosen. Perforation corrosion was investigated using crevice panels of CRS, zinc‐coated steel or different grades of aluminium alloys. From the results, the influence of testing conditions on the cosmetic and perforation corrosion of different automotive materials was obtained. As an example, it was shown that an elevation of the temperature from 35 to 45 °C in the cyclic corrosion test increased the scribe creep on painted CRS and aluminium alloys while it has no significant effects on painted hot dip galvanized (HDG) panels. The results were also compared to that obtained after 2 years of exposure at a marine exposure site and on busses driving in area using de‐icing salt. It was shown that one of the tests performed gives a good correlation to field results.