Effects of galvanic corrosion on compressive force between two galvanic electrodes

The structural internal forces as well as properties may be changed by galvanic corrosion. Studying and understanding the laws of galvanic corrosion effects on structural internal forces is useful for promotion of design level. The experiments and measurements of macro compressed loading and corrosion for a pair of galvanic electrodes subjected to fixed displacement loading are performed and the curve of the compressive force between the galvanic electrodes versus corrosion time is obtained. According to the corroded surface morphologies obtained by scanning electron microscope (SEM) after rust cleaning, the meso-scale finite element model for the corroded zone is developed by using the homogenization method in terms of representative volume element (RVE) and the equivalent elasticity constants of the corroded zone are computed. Meanwhile, the sizes of the corroded zone are determined approximately by the corroded surface morphologies and a macro-scale finite element model for the whole sample is developed and the compressive force is calculated which basically agrees well with the experimental value. Therefore, a new method to numerically simulate the influences of galvanic corrosion on structural mechanical behavior is developed.