This practice provides a controlled corrosive environment that has been utilized to produce relative corrosion information.

The primary application of the data from this practice is to evaluate metallic materials for use in soil environments.

This practice may not duplicate all field conditions and variables such as stray currents, microbiologically influenced corrosion, non-homogeneous conditions, and long cell corrosion. The reproducibility of results in the practice is highly dependent on the type of specimen 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.

Structures and components may be made of several different metals; therefore, the practice may be used to evaluate galvanic corrosion effects in soils (see Guide G 71).

Structures and components may be coated with sacrificial or noble metal coatings, which may be scratched or otherwise rendered discontinuous (for example, no coating on the edges of metal strips cut from a wide sheet). This test is useful to evaluate the effect of defective metallic coatings.

Structures and components may be coated or jacketed with organic materials (for example, paints and plastics), and these coatings and jackets may be rendered discontinuous. The test is useful to evaluate the effect of defective or incompletely covering coatings and jackets.

The corrosivity of soils strongly depends on soluble salt content (related parameters are soil resistivity, see Test Method G 57, and chemistry), acidity or alkalinity (measured by soil pH, see Test Method G 51), and oxygen content (loose, for example, sand, or compact, for example, clay, soils are extreme examples). The manufacturer, supplier, or user, or combination thereof, should establish the nature of the expected soil environment(s) and select the test environment(s) accordingly. Multiple types of soil can be used to determine the effect of this variable.