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7 Things to Know About Flash Rust

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Wade Hannon (/contributors/wade-hannon) | Published: December 29, 2017
Presented by: Graco Inc. (https://www.graco.com/us/en.html)

Source: Glen Jones / Dreamstime.com

Takeaway: Flash rust occurs on metal within minutes to a few hours after cleaning is
complete. The speed with which flash rusting occurs may be indicative of salt contamination
on the surface and high humidity.

Flash rust (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/519/flash-corrosion) refers to the very

rapid onset of rust on a metal substrate
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/1044/substrate). It can happen in a number of
different instances, but what it means is that there isn't much time to guard against it. According
to the SSPC (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/1257/society-for-protective-coatings-
sspc) Protective Coatings Glossary (PCG), flash rust is “rusting that occurs on metal within
minutes to a few hours after cleaning is complete. The speed with which flash rusting occurs may
be indicative of salt contamination on the surface, high humidity, or both.”

As wet cleaning methods have increased, so has the prevalence of flash rust - and the need to look
at solutions or strategies to prevent it. Here are seven key things to know about this type of
corrosion.

It Starts After Water Jetting or Blast Cleaning

Flash rust is rust that occurs with any type of wet abrasive blasting
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/6099/wet-abrasive-blast-cleaning) or surface
preparation using water. (To learn more about this cleaning method, read Understanding the
Industry Shift To Wet Abrasive Blasting (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/understanding-the-
industry-shift-to-wet-abrasive-blasting/2/6547).) Essentially, it's the rust that occurs as the
surface dries or very shortly after that point - so within minutes to - at most - hours.

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Flash rusting can occur anywhere a water-based solution is being used for surface preparation,
but it often occurs as a result of water jetting
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/1272/water-jetting), which is what we call “ultra-
high pressure,” or applications using 10,000 to 40,000 PSI cleaning methods. That said, any type
of surface prep that includes water could cause flash rust conditions. For example, I work with the
U.S. Navy; when we’re doing non-skid surfaces on aircraft carrier decks or helicopter landing
decks on ships they’ll use ultra-high-pressure water to remove the bulk of a coating. At that point,
of course, the water is kind of hanging in pockets and it stays on that surface and that’s where
you’ll start to see the flash rusting occur.

It Happens Within Hours

Flash rust is diagnosed visually. It has a nice, even, almost powdery residue that you'll be able to
see on the surface of the substrate. It'll be a nice, even pattern. Because it occurs as a surface dries
after wet abrasive blasting, it can happen very quickly. This is why prevention methods are so key.
It's essential to have plan for preventing the oxidation
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/842/oxidation) process.
Wikimedia Commons/Brocken Inaglory

Water Quality Counts

One of the big contributors to flash rust is water quality. I've seen a lot of companies down in the
Southern U.S. where they're pulling water out of a well and, as a result, the water has a very high
chloride content. Plus, a pumping system will actually squeeze a lot of the contaminates right out,
just with water pressure. Using a very clean water source, such as water filtered using reverse
osmosis (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/839/reverse-osmosis-ro), can help prevent
flash rust - and even reduce the need for rust inhibitors
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/2196/inhibitor) and other protection methods.

Contamination of the Substrate Is a Factor

Salts and chlorides is a big issue with contamination of the surface, but in a lot of cases what
you’ll find is that there were maybe some particles of rust when the steel was formed. Once they
are exposed they can very quickly start to bleed rust. In many cases, that’s actually called rust-
back, rather than flash rust. It's a variation of the same problem. We'll get into that a bit more in
the next section.

There are Different Variations of the Problem

When it comes to flash rust, there are a couple of different variations. There’s re-rust, flash rust
and, as mentioned above, rust-back. If we’re just dealing with the flash rust aspect of it, then that
has more to do with rust that is going to occur on the surface uniformly in the course of minutes
to a couple of hours.
Rust-back, on the other hand, occurs when there are already contaminates on the surface of a
substrate. So, if you expose bare steel, even if you've done it as a dry spot, but you’ve got high
humidity or moisture in the air, or you're near the coast and you’ve got a really corrosive
/
atmosphere, that’s where you get your rust-back. That's typically something that you’re going to
see when you’ve done dry abrasive blasting
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/21/abrasive-blasting), or used power tools such as
needle guns to clean the surface.
Re-rust, or rust bloom (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/2310/rust-bloom), refers to
new rust. So it’s going to be pretty even over a large section of the surface. It’s similar to flash
rust, but whereas flash rust will develop over minutes or hours, rust bloom can take days to
develop.

Dry Abrasive Blasting Can Increase Surface Contamination Levels (and

Therefore Rust)
Several different manufacturers make a corrosion inhibitors or surface passivators
(https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/1479/passivator) that can be mixed with water and
used for wet abrasive blasting. This allows the water to get deep into the profiles with the vapor
abrasive or wet abrasive technology and it will flush the salts and chlorides out of those deep
grooves, leaving a much cleaner surface.
The key thing to understand about wet surface preparation
(http://www.graco.com/us/en/products/application/abrasive-blasting/industrial-surface-
prep.html) as opposed to dry surface preparation is that a wet system will actually leave the
surface much cleaner than a dry system even if we’re not using a rust inhibitor. This is because
that water tends to hydraulic a lot of the salts and chlorides out of the surface. So, a wet surface
preparation tends to leave a better surface for coating. We don’t have embedment with the wet
and vapor abrasive systems like you do with a dry abrasive, so with the dry abrasive you might
have a particular abrasive with a high salt content. At that point, you’re just starting to
impregnate that substrate with further salt accumulation, so that’s going to increase the amount
of rust that you start to get on the surface.

It's (Mostly) Preventable

There are a few key ways to prevent flash rust. Some inhibitors on the market will evaporate and
actually leave the surface very clean of any contaminates; others are designed to create a film to
prevent the air from getting to the surface to begin the oxidation process. So, when it comes to
water-vapor abrasives, you want to be able to use the right product for that. It may be a situation
where if a customer doesn’t want to coat that substrate right away, and it may take up to a month
before they get to it, you would want to use a material that would create a barrier on the surface
so that they could go back and pressure-wash that barrier off and then provide the coating. That
way, they can work for weeks or sometimes even months with some of these products without
having to deal with any rust or flash rust issues.
In terms of products, there are options like CHLOR RID or HoldTight, which you mix directly in
with the water source that you’re blasting with. (For more on this topic, see Best Practices for
Cost-Effective Surface Salt Removal (https://www.corrosionpedia.com/best-practices-for-cost-
effective-surface-salt-removal/2/5343).) Those are by far the most common. The other way to
prevent flash rust could be as simple as using reverse osmosis water, or a very clean water source.
A very clean water source to begin with would be ideal. If you don’t have that, then you start to
move into having to use rust inhibitors.

Learn More

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 Want to learn more about flash rust? Check out the SSPC's Flash Rust Evaluation Guidelines
(http://www.sspc.org/PB-01001_3), Inspection Techniques for Flash Rust Formed After
Waterjetting
(http://www.elzly.com/docs/Inspection_of_Flash_Rust_formed_after_Waterjetting_11-30-
09.pdf) and FlashRust.org (http://flashrust.org/).

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