Abstract
We report our observations of the corrosion pattern of a steel plate in the presence of a static magnetic field with a field gradient. The steel plate was positioned vertically in a chamber filled with purified water, and the magnetic field was applied normal to the center of the plate. It was found that the pattern of corrosion was due to both the thermal effect of the water and the magnetic field. When the magnetic field was absent, the corrosion pattern was due to the thermal convection of the water when the temperature of water was higher than that of the central part of the plate, a corrosion pattern with a pair of vortices appeared in the lower part of the plate; otherwise, it appeared in the upper part. When the magnetic field was applied while keeping the water temperature uniform, a corrosion pattern with a pair of vortices appeared bilaterally in the center of the plate. This was the first experiment to visualize the behavior of oxygen molecules dissolved in water.
