Pitting Corrosion Sensor and Tracker

The Navy is interested in innovative ways to detect and track corrosion between metallic surfaces in magnesium housings. Many of the corrosion inspection methods currently employed in the field to inspect magnesium housings involve disassembling the components and performing a visual inspection. Apart from being time-consuming, labor intensive, cumbersome and unreliable these inspections often lead to damage of the protective coating covering the surface during disassembly. In addition, the corrosion areas of interest are located in close proximity to the aircraft flight controls and the gearbox mounting and hence a good monitoring system is critical for aircraft safety. In response, Acellent is proposing to use its SMART Layer technology to develop a corrosion inspection system to detect and track corrosion between metallic surfaces to within 5 mils depth and to locate the areas of corrosion to within 1 inch accuracy. This handheld Corrosion Detection system will consist of a Hybrid SMART layer network with piezoelectric sensors for corrosion detection and pressure sensors to detect pressure changes between the metal layers. The system will be developed and tested for resilience against changing stresses, corrosive environments and fretting movement. Several alternative sensors configurations and technologies to detect bolt preloads are also considered.