"Why is My Trailer Corroding?!"
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Why is My Trailer Corroding?! By: Bernardo Duran, Technical Sales Manager, AZZ Galvanizing Services
“Why is my trailer corroding?� Those are words no trailer company wants to hear from their customers. Fortunately, there are ways to slow the corrosion process and extend the life of metals used on trailers. These options apply even for trailers exposed to very corrosive environments, such as boat trailers used in seawater and on livestock trailers. This article will discuss common types of corrosion found on trailers. This will serve as a foundation for the next article in the series, which will discuss various corrosion protection options, and explain how they prevent or limit the types of corrosion discussed in this article. What is Corrosion? Corrosion is a natural process that causes steel to revert to the lower energy state it initially existed in as iron ore. Energy is put into iron during smelting, steelmaking, and fabrication processes, 60
March/April 2015
and corrosion acts to reduce this energy. This reduction in energy causes steel to lose its mechanical properties and often changes its appearance as it corrodes. Corrosion can occur on pure metals, alloys of steel such as carbon and stainless, and aluminum alloys, depending on the environment. Corrosion scientists and engineers have been describing different forms of corrosion since at least the early 1900s. The basic forms of corrosion in this article include general, crevice, pitting and galvanic corrosion. These forms of corrosion can all be identified with the naked eye. General Corrosion General corrosion is also known as uniform corrosion and is the most prevalent type of corrosion. This type of corrosion happens over the entire surface of a structure or large portions of it. The metal loss occurs at roughly the same rate over the corroded area, www.NATM.com