Status of a Cooperative Effort by the Automotive and Steel Industries to Develop a Standard Accelerated Corrosion Test 892569

A Task Force on Corrosion has been established by the Automotive Applications Committee of the American Iron and Steel Institute. The Task Force is composed of technical representatives from the North American sheet steel producers and experts from the major automakers and pretreatment suppliers, and it works closely with related committees of SAE and ASTM. The goal of the Task Force is to develop a laboratory accelerated test for cosmetic corrosion resistance that will provide a reliable ranking of automotive sheet steel products. Work to date has included reviewing available information on cyclic testing, designing new test cycles, identifying suitable test materials and procedures, and conducting tests at commercial laboratories. During 1988, four different cyclic tests were conducted on ten sheet steels coated with a full automotive paint system. The results of these tests are presented and discussed. In future work these results will be compared with those of a series of proving ground tests, on-road tests, static outdoor exposure tests, and other laboratory tests being conducted by ASTM and SAE on samples of identical materials provided by the AISI Task Force. It is anticipated that this program will provide the basis for a universally accepted, standard test which will give a reliable characterization of coated sheet steel products for the automobile industry.