Visual Inspection Corrosion Sensor for Electronic Equipment

Abstract

We have developed a visual inspection corrosion sensor to diagnose the corrosivity in installation environments for electronic equipment. The sensor identifies color difference between corroded and non-corroded metal film and shows how the length of discolored area side change over time. The change in length can then be used to determine the amount of metal corrosion by corrosion analysis considering diffusion of corrosive gas and corrosion reaction of metal. Once we know the amount of metal corrosion, we can classify the level of corrosivity in the environment. Silver is sensitive to reduced sulfur that has recently been identified as a primary corrosion risk to electronic equipment. In this paper, we produced trial corrosion sensor made of silver film. We checked on the accuracy of silver corrosion sensor by using mixed flowing gas tests that simulate actual use environments. The amount of corrosion by the corrosion sensor agrees with that by conventional silver coupon with error margin of 20 ％. Our proposed sensor is compact, inexpensive, and does not require a power supply, so it can be easily and safety used in any location at which electronic equipment is installed. Moreover, corrosivity in the environment can be visualized on-site, without the need for instrumental analysis.