Innovative Coating for Protection of 5000-Series Aluminum Alloys

Anti-corrosion coatings are critical to protecting and maintaining the integrity of U.S. Navy ships. The steel and aluminum metal on the marine vessel must be protected from the high humidty and salt spray of the marine environment. 5000 series aluminum used on naval ships is a very corrosion resistance aluminum alloy. However, when these alloy have high levels of magnesium (>3%) they alloys are susceptible to being sensitized and undergoing stress corrosion cracking or exfoliation cracking at the grain boundary. Unfortunately, current naval ship coating systems do not provide a sufficient environmental barrier to protect sensitized aluminum 5000. TDA has recently developed a new class of corrosion inhibiting nanomaterial additives that can dramatically increase the corrosion protection performance of epoxy coatings. The inclusion of TDA’s corrosion inhibitors in an epoxy coating will provide the needed performance boast to protect these alloys in the aggressive marine environment. In the Phase I we will incorporate the TDA’s nanomaterial corrosion inhibitors into a high performance epoxy resin system for naval ships. We will demonstrate that the coating system is effective at protecting sensitized 5000 series aluminum from stress corrosion cracking.