Monitoring of Corrosion on Mild Steel Coupon using Piezo Impedance based Structural Health Monitoring (PISHM): A Periodical Study of Experimental Mass Loss and Coupled Finite Element Analysis

This study examined the impact of corrosion on a mild steel coupon exposed to corrosion environment. This research combines experimental and numerical simulation methods to assess the effects of corrosion, focusing on the mass loss and performance of the lead zirconate titanate (PZT) sensor. Experimentally, the steel bar was subjected to corrosive conditions, that is 3.5% sodium chloride (NaCl), and the weight loss due to corrosion was measured at regular intervals. These weight loss data were then used to simulate the same corrosion effects numerically, analysing the influence on the signatures (i.e. conductance and susceptance) extracted from PZT patches. Numerical simulations were conducted using finite element modelling to replicate the corrosion process and its impact on the response of the PZT patch. The simulated signatures were compared with the baseline data using root mean square deviation (RMSD) values to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the PZT patch for detecting corrosion-induced changes in the steel coupon. By correlating the experimental weight loss measurements with the numerical PZT sensor data, this study aimed to validate the effectiveness of PZT patches for real-time corrosion monitoring.