(techno music)
-: I think we can all agree that we spend
far too much money on gasoline.
But the good news is, that in less than 10 years,
the fuel efficiency of every vehicle
will be required to be 54.5 miles per gallon or higher
according to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Regulations.
As you might expect, there are many research
projects working towards this end.
But current methods are not only expensive,
but also require the development of synthetic products.
A solution to this is the utilization of magnesium.
Magnesium is the lowest density structural metal
and has a good strength to weight ratio.
Even great than that of certain steels.
Additionally, it is the fourth most common
element in the earth, providing a high supply of materials
at a very affordable cost.
As such, magnesium is of great interest
to the automotive industry.
But there's a problem,
magnesium does not have adequate corrosion resistance,
making its use impractical in many potential applications.
But since it is such a promising lightweight material,
much research is being done on different
ways to improve its corrosion resistance
so that it can be used more effectively
in the automotive industry.
In my research, I study a magnesium sphere and cube
of the same surface area in a salt water solution
to see if a change in the geometry
could have an effect on the corrosion rate.
Three different corrosion mechanisms were considered:
the general corrosion or the general
eating away of the surface,
the pitting corrosion, or the formation and growth of pits,
and the inner granular corrosion.
Which is the corrosion that develops between grains.
We also utilized two measurements to determine
if a change in the geometry would affect the corrosion rate.
The change in the mass
and the change in the volume of hydrogen gas produced.
To understand these results,
let me first orient you to my graphs.
On the X axis of both graphs,
you will see the duration of time in hours.
On the Y axis, you will see the amount of corrosion
in terms of the change in mass
and in terms of the change in
the volume of hydrogen gas produced.
From these results we determine that the cube
corroded faster than the sphere
in that it had a greater mass lost
and a greater volume of hydrogen gas produced.
Thus, the geometry did have an effect
on the amount of total corrosion
and on the corrosion rate.
This research lays the foundation for future work
on the effects of geometry on the corrosion of magnesium
as well as other metals.
How promising is it to think that a simple change
in the geometry of a magnesium car part
has the potential to significantly
decrease its corrosion rate.
This would certainly be one of the most cost-effective
ways to improve magnesium's corrosion resistance
and thereby make for an inexpensive and simple way
to improve the fuel efficiency of automobiles.