REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS: AUTO TECHNOLOGY CHAMBERS & THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SAE J2334

How Important Are the Methods and Equipment Used for Corrosion Testing?

Close-up of a family standing beside a car with severe rust damage on the wheel arch, showing how real-world corrosion undermines automotive coatings and structural integrity over time.

Materials that once “passed” still suffered visible rust after only a few winters on the road. These real-world failures led engineers at Ford, GM, AISI, and SAE to collaborate—using Auto Technology cyclic corrosion chambers—to create SAE J2334, a test that finally mirrored how corrosion occurs in the field.

For decades, many OEMs and suppliers treated corrosion testing as a checkbox exercise. The thinking was simple: if a material passed testing after a salt spray practice (ASTM B117 / ISO 9227), it was “good enough.”

By the early 1990s, that assumption was costing the automotive industry dearly. Major automakers like Ford and GM were spending billions on warranty repairs for rusted rocker panels, blistered paint, and corroded seams. Materials that passed laboratory tests were failing in the field because the industry wasn’t treating corrosion testing with the rigor it deserved.

A Coalition Formed to Fight Corrosion

Realizing that existing methods couldn’t predict real-world performance, engineers from the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI), the SAE Automotive Corrosion & Prevention Committee (ACAP), and later the Auto/Steel Partnership (A/SP) joined forces to find a better way.

Their mission was ambitious: to design a corrosion test that could replicate real-world weather—cycling through salt exposure, humidity, drying, and temperature changes—under precise, repeatable laboratory conditions.

To make that possible, the team used cyclic corrosion chambers from Auto Technology Company, built for the environmental accuracy and consistency the program required.

Landmark Corrosion Studies

Coastal lighthouse platform with rusted steel railings and cracked concrete overlooking the ocean—illustrating the relentless impact of salt, humidity, and temperature cycling that corrosion engineers strive to replicate in laboratory testing.

Salt-laden air, humidity, and thermal cycling at coastlines like this create some of the harshest natural corrosion environments on Earth. Auto Technology’s cyclic corrosion chambers were engineered to reproduce these same conditions under controlled, repeatable laboratory settings—forming the foundation for the SAE J2334 standard.

Over a 15-year period, researchers compared laboratory-tested panels of cold-rolled, electro-galvanized, and galvannealed steels with panels exposed outdoors in Montreal, Quebec and St. John’s, Newfoundland—two of North America’s harshest corrosion environments.

The laboratory testing, conducted in Auto Technology cyclic corrosion chambers, was benchmarked against the field results. The outcome was SAE J2334—a cyclic test method whose corrosion patterns and material rankings closely matched those observed after five years of real-world vehicle exposure.

SAE J2334 is a cyclic test standard that requires the chamber to conform to SAE J1563, ASTM D1735, and ASTM D2247. The solution for this test is comprised of .5% NaCl, .1% CaCl₂, .075% NaHCO₃, and the balance D.I. water. SAE J2334 allows for the solution to be sprayed onto the samples or the samples can be immersed under the solution for a set period of time. SAE J2334 is normally conducted for a minimum of 60 days. Mass loss coupons are placed in the test exposure zone to provide a measure of the corrosiveness of the test. These mass loss coupons are similar to the ones used in GMW 14872 testing.

By the late 1990s, a large interlaboratory “round-robin” study validated and refined the procedure. Published in the Galvatech 2001 Conference Proceedings, that study demonstrated that precise environmental control dramatically improved reproducibility between laboratories.

Why J2334 Still Matters

The J2334 research effort redefined how corrosion testing is done and set the standard for modern cyclic testing worldwide. More than two decades later, OEMs, suppliers, and independent laboratories continue to depend on cyclic corrosion chambers built to the same principles proven by Auto Technology Company during the A/SP–SAE–AISI collaboration.

The lesson still applies: cheap, uncontrolled salt-fog tests lead to expensive surprises. True corrosion durability can only be demonstrated through precise, repeatable cyclic testing performed in Auto Technology chambers built to do it right.

Reference

Lutze, F. W., McCune, D. C., Shaffer, R. J., Smith, K., Thompson, L. S., & Townsend, H. E. (2001).
Interlaboratory Testing to Evaluate Improvements in the Precision of the SAE J2334 Cyclic Corrosion Test.
In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Zinc and Zinc-Alloy Coated Steel Sheet (Galvatech 2001), M. Lamberights (ed.), Verlag Stahleisen, Düsseldorf.