VEXTEC Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: The Navy incurred approximately $3 billion in aircraft corrosion maintenance costs. Design

Description

The Navy incurred approximately $3 billion in aircraft corrosion maintenance costs. Design analysis tools are largely empirical and are derived from physical testing of the basic material specimens, which do not have the capability to account for degradation of these properties due to operational conditions. Corrosion is a time-dependent phenomenon and although there are test methods for accelerating corrosion testing, this does not provide an actual depiction of the field phenomenon of corrosion. Damage is often not fully realized until after years of exposure to the corrosive environment. Our Phase I feasibility proof activities will focus on the adding the prediction of galvanic effects of dissimilar material interfaces to VEXTEC"s already operational material fatigue simulation framework. The Phase I will demonstrate that a computational tool is capable of correctly predicting galvanic corrosion based on the dissimilar material systems, alloy"s microstructure, processing history and operational environment. The methodology and framework developed under the proposed Phase I effort will be mechanistic (and not empirical) in nature and therefore can be readily extended to a variety of material combinations in corrosive environments.