SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Overall, corrosion costs the U.S. over $300 billion annually which represents more than 3% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Currently, the DoD spends over $10 billion a year on a never-ending battle against corrosion each year to remain airworthy. In some cases, aircraft maintenance hours can far outstrip flight hours leading to loss of asset readiness. The primary reason for this is that aluminum and magnesium have been the materials of choice for military aviation due to their lightweight yet strong material properties. Unfortunately, due to their galvanic potential, these materials suffer from accelerated corrosion in the harsh environments where these vehicles operate. This challenge is especially critical for military aircraft that typically operate older aircraft which use corrosion sensitive materials such as aluminum and magnesium that may lack effective corrosion resistive coatings. Currently the Air Force applies a corrosion resistant conversion coating in conjunction with primer and epoxy paint to provide corrosion protection on these materials, but this system is often considered marginally better than no coating at all. In Phase II, UPT will build from Phase I success using a combination of deposition technologies to develop a production ready novel hybrid nanocomposite environmental barrier coating which will provide order of magnitude improvements to corrosion resistance as well as friction and wear to existing components. During this effort, UPT will perform research and development to optimize coating corrosion and wear properties for aluminum and magnesium substrates as well as conduct MIL-STD testing to ensure air worthiness. The anticipated benefits of the project are reduced or eliminated corrosion-based maintenance on AGB and AMAD aircraft components and a significant improvement in overall asset reliability. In addition, the benefits of this corrosion resistant solution will be extended to other critical military and commercial applications to reduce the overall burden of corrosion related maintenance.
