An advanced technique to predict time-dependent corrosion damage of onshore, offshore, nearshore and ship structures: Part I = generalisation

A reliable and cost-effective technique for the development of corrosion damage model is introduced to predict nonlinear time-dependent corrosion wastage of steel structures. A detailed explanation on how to propose a generalised mathematical formulation of the corrosion model is investigated in this paper (Part I), and verification and application of the developed method are covered in the following paper (Part II) by adopting corrosion data of a ship's ballast tank structure. In this study, probabilistic approaches including statistical analysis were applied to select the best fit probability density function (PDF) for the measured corrosion data. The sub-parameters of selected PDF, e.g., the largest extreme value distribution consisting of scale, and shape parameters, can be formulated as a function of time using curve fitting method. The proposed technique to formulate the refined time-dependent corrosion wastage model (TDCWM) will be useful for engineers as it provides an easy and accurate prediction of the 1) starting time of corrosion, 2) remaining life of the structure, and 3) nonlinear corrosion damage amount over time. In addition, the obtained outcome can be utilised for the development of simplified engineering software shown in Appendix B.