1995 Volume 44 Issue 10 Pages 572-574
Critical issues to be solved were considered and a basic concept was proposed to establish effective corrosion protection of infrastructures that require increasingly long service life with a minimum of maintenance to conform to the aging of society and the avoidance of 3D (dirty, dangerous and demanding) jobs. An appropriate service life for each type of infrastructure must be set by the government from the standpoint of economy and the welfare of society rather than that of technological capability as is the case of 100 years life for long-span highway bridges in the bay areas. Future long-term corrosion engineering to meet the requirement must be the one most appropriate from the inclusive standpoint of total-life economy, labor saving and friendliness to the earth. Formulas to evaluate the total score are not available yet due primarily to the difficulty of judging relative size and importance of impact upon protection of the environment and conservation of energy and resources, and must be developed by the cooperation of technical societies of various areas including corrosioin engineering. Reliable life prediction of specific corrodible structures is a critical item in evaluating a corrosion protection system, which can basically be made by using compiled practical corrosion data with proper modifications with respect to structural, environmental and time factors.