Development of a Toolkit for Electrochemical Modeling of Metal-rich Primers

Corrosion resistant coatings which are based on metal-rich primers are of huge interest to Navy and DoD, since they promise an alternative for the chromium coatings which are toxic and carcinogenic. The development of such coatings and their application to DoD assets is currently impacted by the lack of fundamental understanding of these coatings and their protection behavior. Under this SBIR, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) proposes to develop a physics-based toolkit for electrochemical modeling of the interactions between the material system comprising of the metal-rich primer, substrate surface and the environment. The framework will leverage existing electrochemical models for corrosion chemistry and take into account all the interfaces matrix/particle, primer/substrate, and primer/topcoat. In Phase I, ACT will develop the preliminary framework necessary for capturing the electrochemical interactions and demonstrate sample results for their feasibility. Efforts would be made to match the simulation outcome to measurement data supplied by NAVAIR and open literature.