Effects of edge treatment parameters on the protection performance of organic coating systems in a wave chamber

•A novel testing facility for corrosion protection tests on coated edges is developed.•DoE (Design of Experiments) based tests are performed, and the results are statistically evaluated.•No statistically significant effect of the edge radius on the corrosion protection performance exists.•Edge rounding process and local corrosivity provide significant contributions and are more important than edge radius. Based on a specially designed accelerated wave chamber ageing tests, the corrosion protection capability of organic coatings over cut edges is investigated. The edges are rounded with different tools, including CO2-laser, solid-state laser, plasma beam, grinding and milling tools. Two coating systems for ballast water tank environments and two rounding radii are considered. The samples are placed on four locations in the wave chamber, characterized through different corrosive environments. DOE (Design of Experiments) and ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) are used to rank the parameter effects. It is shown that edge radius has no statistically significant effect on the corrosion protection performance of the coatings. In contrast, rounding process and chamber location are extremely significant. A hypothesis of a hierarchic geometrical edge structure is proposed.