CORROSION ENGINEERING LABORATORY

The Corrosion Engineering Laboratory is a recently built 2,500 sq. ft. addition to the Engineering Research complex on the North side of the USF campus. Closely integrating education and research, the laboratory incorporates the offices of Prof. A. Sagüés and graduate students/visiting researchers active in the area of durability of engineering materials. The laboratory is one of few in the U.S. focused on solving corrosion problems in cement and concrete applications, with emphasis on enhancing durability of the large inventory of marine bridges in the State of Florida. Other areas of interest include interdisciplinary diagnostic and forecasting of materials performance of metals in natural environments, advanced corrosion modeling, electrochemical evaluation methods, nuclear waste, and semiconductor electrochemistry.

The laboratory contains several state of the art potentiostatic and electrochemical impedance systems, exposure tanks and environmental chambers for corrosion evaluation with multiple electrochemical controllers, metallographic preparation, chemical analysis systems, and an array of custom built electrochemical cells as well as a rotating disk electrode. An adjacent Test Yard is used for exposure and evaluation of materials used in field applications. Portable equipment for field testing includes soil and concrete resistivity units and potentiostats. Samples prepared at the laboratory are also analyzed in conjunction with the metallographic, electron optics, x-ray diffraction and nano-characterization equipment available to the College of Engineering. Concurrent with the experimental activities, computer analysis and predictive model development and implementation are conducted regularly to validate and expand the materials performance laboratory findings.