LUNA INNOVATIONS INCORPORATED — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF161-113

Description

ABSTRACT: Maintenance and sustainment are critical to structural integrity and availability of US Air Force aircraft.The first line of defense against corrosion is coatings and protection systems that provide barriers to the environment and inhibit corrosion of structural alloys.There are currently no methods or monitoring techniques to assess protection system condition, corrosive ingress into airframe structures, and nucleation of corrosion damage, other than the visual observations of corrosion.Advances in electrochemical and impedance based measurements, passive flexible electronics, and embedded sensor networks provide the means to address the critical need for direct measurements of protection system condition and corrosion of complex multilayer aircraft components.Impedance based measurements provide the capability to quantify barrier properties, coating cracking, and other coating mechanical damage that would allow environmental ingress into the airframe.Electrochemical measurements provide a means for assessing moisture, amount of inhibitor, and active corrosion.To support Air Force objectives, Luna proposes the development of a passive powered, embedded, micro-electrode sensor array that can be interrogated using a walk up, handheld reader that provides immediate read out of coating condition including barrier properties, amount of remaining inhibitor, and subsurface contaminants, and corrosion.; BENEFIT: A successful product development effort will result in a robust, accurate, and reliable on-aircraft coating and corrosion measurement system.The ability to measure and monitor coating condition including barrier properties, remaining inhibitor, contaminants within the structure, and corrosion throughout the aircraft lifecycle will allow for enhanced maintenance and sustainment practices to optimize total ownership costs and aircraft availability. Though designed specifically for integration with Air Force aircraft, the system will be applicable for use in other military assets as well as commercial applications in aerospace, oil and gas, chemical process, and transportation industries.The system will be valuable to government and industry organizations that maintain and sustain infrastructure and assets that are exposed to harsh environments.The direct measurement systems will enable more efficient maintenance practices to achieve the optimal balance of costs and availability while contributing to structural integrity.