ACCELERATED LIFE TESTING DEVELOPMENT FOR DETERMINING THE RELIABILITY OF SSN-21 HULL COATINGS

The integrity of rubber-to-metal bonds is an area of reliability concern, particularly in systems that are exposed to the harsh conditions of the marine environment. Accelerated life testing (ALT) is a technique used to obtain reliability data in a compressed time frame, allowing lifetime performance predictions and failure mode analyses to be made prior to equipment installation. By performing activation energy laboratory experiments on samples of the SSN-21 hull coating material, TRI/Austin will determine the ratio of accelerated aging rate, under elevated stress conditions, to real-time aging rate. information, an ALT exposure schedule will be designed that can aging; by repeating the exposure schedule, the lifetime reliability and performance characteristics of the SSN-21 hull coating may be predicted. An existing computer software ALT design model will be refined to provide the ability to incorporate different service operating conditions, in-port climates, and activation energies. The computer model will allow modification of mission profile information, through convenient user-interface options, in order to produce new ALT