Modeling Corrosion of a Metal under an Aerosol Droplet

On a metal surface covered with a moisture layer of variable thickness and shape, the dissolved oxygen may induce a spatial separation of the anodic and cathodic reactions on space-time scales characteristic of the roughness, droplet size and the local kinetics of the system. This leads to a spatio-temporal variations in species concentrations, current and potential over the metal surface and thus atmospheric corrosion. Here a fully three-dimensional transient model is developed that addresses the corrosion of a metal under an aerosol droplet. The effects of various parameters, such as exchange current densities, initial concentrations, shape and size of the droplet, and diffusivity of oxygen on ionic, potential and current distributions are investigated.