To accurately assess the corrosion degree of bronze artefacts, this article quantitatively characterises the corrosion of bronze artefacts using the entropy-weighted grey correlation method, which is of great significance for formulating effective surface corrosion assessment strategies for artefacts. In this work, the corroded areas of the artefacts were observed using an Ultra-deep field microscope and photographed with a digital camera. A schematic diagram of the corrosion on the bronzes was drawn using Adobe Photoshop software for subsequent entropy correlation sorting as a comparative analysis. To obtain evaluation data, the surface corrosion products of 64 bronze artefacts from the Jingmen City Museum collection were tested using energy-dispersive spectrometer. Finally, a quantitative relationship between the elemental composition of corrosion products on the surface of bronzes and their level of corrosion was established using the entropy-weighted grey correlation method. The results show that the influence of each index is ranked in order of importance as the ratio of chlorine to metal elements, the ratio of oxygen-to-metal ratio, S, Pb, Sn, and Cu, among which the ratios of chlorine to metal elements, the ratios of oxygen-to-metal ratio, and the S element have a greater correlation with the degree of corrosion of bronzes. The study also integrates the entropy-weighted grey correlation analysis results with the macroscopic characteristics and microscopic morphological analysis of the samples, validating the effectiveness of the weighted grey correlation method in grading the degree of corrosion in bronzes. This approach offers a novel method for quantitatively measuring bronze corrosion.
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