ASTM B117:2011, “Standard Practice for Operating Salt Spray (Fog) Apparatus,” has just been released. The 12 page standard is also available in a redline edition, which means that when you purchase the copyright document, you not only get the new edition, but also a copy of the previous 2009 Edition with all the corrections “redlined.”
One of the first standards to catch my interest, ASTM B117 is the oldest (originally issued in 1937) and most widely used cabinet test. It’s used primarily to compare the corrosion resistance of painted or metal coated samples.
ASTM B117 covers the apparatus, procedure, and conditions required to create and maintain the salt spray (fog) test environment. It provides a controlled corrosive environment which has been utilized to produce relative corrosion resistance information for specimens of metals and coated metals.
The reproducibility of results in the salt spray exposure is highly dependent on the type of specimens tested and the evaluation criteria selected, as well as the control of the operating variables. In any testing program, sufficient replicates should be included to establish the variability of the results.
Variability has been observed when similar specimens are tested in different fog chambers even though the testing conditions are nominally similar and within the ranges specified in the practice.
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