Corrosive Aerosol Risk Evaluation System

Aerosolized chloride contamination causes adverse impacts on US Department of the Air Force (DAF) facilities and assets operations. Corrosion represents a $5B per annum operational cost to the DAF and a $21B per annum cost to the US Department of Defense overall according to a Government Accountability Office report in 2018. Increasingly heightened life cycle management costs necessitate accurate, real-time, easily deployable, robust, comprehensive predictive condition-based monitoring solutions. Using optical particle scattering/absorption measurements combined with interdigitated corrosion sensors, a novel measurement system has been developed.á This sensor combination simultaneous measures the concentration of aerosolized chlorides (salt) in the air and the amount of corrosion occurring on aircraft grade aluminum.á The data generated by this system during a 6-month study period will be used to train an AI/ML model, developed by MIT Lincoln Labs, that predicts corrosion behavior.á A software tool is beginning development to take this data and the modelĺs predictions to alert aircraft maintainers when contamination levels become too high.á This will trigger maintenance procedures such as washing and inspections which will help reduce overall DAF sustainment costs.