| Abstract Scope |
Although not standardized, metal samples are polished to an extent that the material can exhibit stabilized corrosion behavior by removing contaminants and native oxides prior to conducting the electrochemical measurement. In general, the extent of stabilization is indicated by a delayed open circuit potential process for a period depending on the exposure environment. However, this stabilization process has never been characterized, or quantified, in a standard to determine the delay time to reach stabilization. This work provides a viable approach to quantify the variation introduced by mechanical polishing in various environments, and meanwhile studying the noise or variation that could be introduced due to uncontrollable factors during the preparation. The robust experimental design in combination with the statistic tools can provide a new vision to interrogate the corrosion potential data that usually been ignored, and to refine the sample preparation process with the support of statistical analysis. |