Corrosion performance of waterborne coatings for structural steel

Abstract

Among recently developed waterborne coatings, epoxy and acrylic based coatings have a special place. To study this kind of anticorrosive coatings, use is normally made of natural exposure and laboratory tests. The literature has recently reported that the salt spray test is not suitable for selecting/studying anticorrosive waterborne coatings. In this paper, the authors present the main results obtained in an experimental study involving laboratory tests and natural exposure in two atmospheric test sites of different corrosivity categories. The natural exposure and accelerated tests are complemented by other measurements in the laboratory, involving water uptake, adhesion and electrochemical measurements, to understand the anticorrosive performance of the paint systems under study. As accelerated tests, salt spray and prohesion were used. Indirect measurements of adhesion were made using cross-cut and pull-off tests. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and noise (EN) were used for electrochemical characterization. The study concludes that the best anticorrosive behaviour was shown by epoxy-polyamide paint systems, including zinc-rich primers. The correlation between the results of salt spray and natural exposure in marine test sites was significantly better than that obtained using the prohesion test. The electrochemical results showed that it is very important to pay special attention when interpreting this kind of results.