Corrosion Control Industry Day (NAVSEA 05P)

Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), Ship Integrity and Performance Group (SEA 05P) is conducting an Industry Day to identify products and processes to support an ongoing initiative that is enhancing corrosion-control on U.S. Navy vessels. The effort will seek new materials, processes, or procedures that will enhance ship corrosion-control performance and that could result in new products qualified to military specification, or processes that could be incorporated into NAVSEA’s universal coatings applications requirements document, Standard Item 009-032, “Cleaning and Painting Requirements; accomplish.” New materials, processes, and procedures that can achieve measurable gains in coating installation efficiency, decreased ship downtime, and extend service life of U.S. Navy vessels are of interest to NAVSEA.

NAVSEA 05P plays a critical role in maintaining the materiel readiness, safety, and operational reliability of U.S. Navy ships and submarines through the continuous oversight of maintenance, overhaul, repair, modification, and modernization activities. Among the most significant maintenance cost drivers within the fleet is corrosion, which directly impacts hull integrity, system functionality, and overall mission readiness.

To address this persistent challenge, NAVSEA works with the Regional Maintenance Centers, and the fleet to develop and implement effective materials and installation procedures that provide high quality, durable coatings and corrosion control design improvements that can enhance surface ship life-cycle corrosion control performance. NAVSEA coating performance requirements identify the highest performance coatings available from the commercial marine coating industry and Standard Item 009-032, “Cleaning and Painting Requirements; accomplish,” (latest revision) establishes efficient requirements for surface preparation, coating application, inspection, and documentation in ensure installed coatings achieve anticipated service life. Compliance with Standard Item 009-032 is essential to achieving consistent corrosion-control performance and minimizing the need for premature coating rework.

NAVSEA 05P is always seeking new materials, processes, and procedures to enhance corrosion-control performance. NAVSEA 05P also coordinates with other waterfront activities to ensure materials and preservation processes, satisfy all safety (e.g., flash point, hazardous materials, etc.) and environmental compliance (e.g., hazardous air pollutants, heavy metals, etc.) requirements. By addressing safety and environmental issues, “up front,” NAVSEA 05P ensures that only fully implementable materials, processes, and procedures are specified for use on U.S. Navy ships.

This effort seeks to optimize the materials, processes, and procedures at all stages of the coating selection and installation process including; analysis of coating materials and performance, defining surface preparation processes; validating needed environmental control, assessing coating application efficacy; and then inspecting and documenting the quality of the installation process. Proposed improvements should demonstrate quantifiable benefits that directly contribute to reduced cost, time, and risk associated with shipboard corrosion control. NAVSEA 05P is particularly interested in solutions that integrate advanced technologies or methodologies that enhance consistency, repeatability, and long-term coating system performance in the operational fleet environment.

Increased efficiency may be demonstrated through one or more of the following measurable outcomes:

• Reduction in total preservation process timeline, including surface preparation, coating, and inspection stages.
• Elimination or minimization of hazardous materials, assessing hazardous materials in coatings and corrosion control systems is essential to mitigate risks such as fire, worker health and safety issues, and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) regulatory limitations.
• Reduction in required rework or non-conformance at any phase of the coating installation process due to streamlined process control, quality assurance, or environmental mitigation.
• Reduction in downtime between preservation steps, achieved through optimized sequencing, decreased time to overcoat or time to service windows, or better coordination of parallel work activities.
• Increase in the service life and performance of corrosion control systems, as indicated by extended time intervals between required preservation or maintenance actions.
• Reduction in total life-cycle costs of corrosion control, as indicated by implementing solutions that decrease material expenses, minimize labor hours, extend the lifespan of coatings and preservation systems, and reduce the frequency of emergent maintenance caused by corrosion. Proposed solutions should demonstrate a clear return on investment through quantifiable reductions in direct and indirect costs associated with shipboard corrosion control and preservation.
• Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reduce corrosion by shifting maintenance from reactive repair to predictive prevention. The most significant efficiency improvements associated with AI may be realized by integrating sensors, digital engineering, robotics and data management. AI models must be able to address the primarily visual corrosion inspection data that inherently has limited quantifiable data (e.g., a ship condition score based on visual assessment requires different assessment than numerical data regarding plate thickness reduction due to corrosion).
• A corrosion digital twin to create a virtual model of an asset, that is continuously updated with inspection and sensor data. This virtual model will need to predict corrosion initiation, propagation, coating degradation, and prediction of the remaining useful life based on primarily visual condition assessment data.
• Enhanced performance coating systems that can simplify coating application processes, minimize use of hazardous materials, and provide enhanced durability coatings that may include:
  • Non-liquid coatings applications, including thermal spray metallic coatings and conversion coatings.
  • Non-metallic and corrosion-resistant materials that provide alternatives to components that corrode or degrade.
  • Advanced zinc- or aluminum-bearing coatings that can provide galvanic corrosion-control performance at coating defects or holidays.
  • Advanced, persistent corrosion preventative compounds that can be applied to surfaces with limited surface preparation.