TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Materials/Processes

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Virginia Class Submarine

OBJECTIVE: To develop a more accurate testing standard for Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) of submarine components.

DESCRIPTION: Recent Navy research has indicated that the Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) protocols have in some cases overestimated accelerated aging by a factor of ten, meaning that a component may fail in two years rather than the twenty years certified.

The Navy spends approximately 25% of its annual submarine maintenance budget on corrosion control. Debonding of paints and other polymeric coatings from metal surfaces in particular can cause hardware degradation and failure in the marine environment. Such processes typically involve an electrochemical reaction between water and dissolved oxygen, generating hydroxide ions at the polymer-metal interface. Because this reaction takes place only on cathodically polarized metal surfaces, it has been given the generic name of "cathodic delamination" (CD).

CD is responsible for an estimated $10M to $100M per year in unanticipated hardware failures and increased maintenance costs, and evidence has been accumulating that the "standard mechanism" for CD may not be realistic for all debonding scenarios.

This topic involves an investigation of the accuracy of the accelerated life testing protocols for CD resistance utilized by the Navy acquisition community for first article testing of a wide variety of naval hardware. Since the 1980s, new ideas for CD accelerated life testing protocols and possible CD mitigation strategies and techniques have been proposed (and in some cases partially adopted by the Navy). Proposers are encouraged to reinvestigate the nature of the CD problem and determine the effectiveness of new approaches for combating CD.

PHASE I: Develop approaches for improved Accelerated Life testing of components subject to cathodic delamination through modeling and tests of seawater diffusion into paints and other polymeric coatings.

PHASE II: Test/verify approaches against Navy components of interest to generate sufficient data to support more accurate testing standards.

PHASE III: Incorporate successful results into Navy standards, e.g., the Outboard Cable Molding Manual (NAVSEA S9320-AM-PRO-020 MLDG REV 2).

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Improved Accelerated Life Testing will impact many sectors, both military and commercial.

REFERENCES:
1. Ramotowski, T., 2002, "Accelerated Life Testing of Marine Cables and Connectors: Problems, Pitfalls, and Suggestions for Improvements," Proceedings of the Oceans 2002 MTS/IEEE Conference, Biloxi, MS, October 29-31, 2002.

2. T. Ramowtowski, "A New Look at an Old Scourge: Cathodic Delamination and the 21st Century Navy" (ILIR report). https://donst.nrl.navy.mil/cgi-bin/login-form.cgi

KEYWORDS: corrosion; Accelerated Life Testing; debonding; cathodic delamination; aging; coatings

TPOC: Thomas Ramotowski
Phone: (401) 832-5111
Fax: (401) 832-6401
Email: thomas.ramotoski@navy.mil

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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