Simulation of stress-assisted localised corrosion using a Cellular Automaton Finite Element approach

In this paper, the overall corrosion damage process is modelled sequentially using cellular automata (CA) to describe the localised corrosion component, and finite element analysis (FEA) to account for the mechanical component resulting from the stress concentration effect of the corrosion defect (pit). Synchronous execution of the CA and FEA, and provision of feedback between both provides a good approximation of stress-assisted pit development. Qualitative and quantitative comparison of simulation results with experimental measurements show good agreement. In particular, the model shows that mechanical effects, notably plastic strain, accelerates the rate of development of localised corrosion.