ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to address some of the issues that arise from trying to predict corrosion in service. This is an inexact subject and some of the comments must come down to the opinion and judgement of practitioners. The chapter discusses the nature of the engineering application and systems interplay, and knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms to demonstrate that the means of life limitation are correct. It also recognizes that there are three different aspects to corrosion prediction. The first two aspects are predicting the observable phenomena of corrosion, which is based on mechanism; predicting the anticipated rate of corrosion, that is the kinetic aspects which are based on physics and chemistry, especially electrochemistry. The third aspect is predicting the actual corrosion in service which is based on the engineering aspects of the subject. The impact of biological factors on corrosion and corrosion control is quite difficult to quantify. Test trials are a common feature of predicting corrosion performance.
