USAFA: Advancing Corrosion Prevention and Control Research Grant

The USAFA is seeking unclassified research white papers and proposals that do not contain proprietary information. If proprietary information is submitted it is the offerors’ responsibility to mark the relevant portions of their proposal as specified in USAFA-BAA-2015. CAStLE performs a range of structural integrity research tasks in support of multiple Government, academic and commercial sponsors. Among these pursuits, CAStLE engages in a wide range of corrosion engineering and material science research efforts, with more emphasis on applied research, and that part of development not related to a specific system or hardware procurement.

Current CAStLE research strengths include: high temperature materials development; advanced barrier coatings; static strength, static stability design, corrosion modeling, prevention and control; validation testing, analysis and methods development; computational structural and fracture mechanics; failure analysis, flight data acquisition system development, installation, maintenance and data analysis; structural risk analysis, and support of the USAF Aircraft Structural Integrity Program (ASIP). The interaction between corrosion and cracking damage mechanisms and their effect on the structural integrity has been a long-standing interest of CAStLE. There is Department of Defense (DoD) level interest in material degradation in structures—to include corrosion, cracking and other service-related damage mechanisms. The DoD level material degradation interest is the subject of this CALL, while also serving a dual public purpose.

This CALL is focused on fundamental research that can lead to the future development of capabilities to prevent and control corrosion and degradation of materials and the structures of systems and facilities. The ultimate goal of these capabilities is reducing costs, improving availability of systems and increasing the safety of military assets, which serve a dual interest in public structures and facilities. Projects must be new research efforts. Proposals for the continuation of existing research projects funded under previous grant or cooperative agreement awards are not desired. Collaboration among proposing institutions is strongly encouraged.

Specific research areas of interest include the following Corrosion Investment Categories along with their associated problem statements and focus:

Corrosion Investment Categories:

Performance Prediction

• Problem Statement: Inability to accurately predict corrosion performance drives maintenance costs and disrupts schedules. This is complicated by implementation of new materials and processes (e.g. non-chrome coatings, additively-manufactured components). Focus is to accurately predict corrosion in DoD systems via validated methods; these predictions and solutions will be mirrored in applicability to the public sector.

  Real-Time Condition Assessment

• Problem Statement: Methodologies and techniques for assessment of corrosion related systems health are not sufficient to integrate with maintenance and repair strategies, especially based on conditioned and reliability centered approaches. Focus is to assess corrosion health of systems and infrastructure to integrate with maintenance strategies.

  Advanced Materials and Processing

• Problem Statement: Materials selection/materials substitution decisions are difficult due to the desire to optimize competing trade factors (cost, availability, safety, performance, etc.); widely-varying and sometimes unanticipated operational environments; and regulations restricting use of hazardous materials and processes. Focus is to investigate new materials that can handle diverse environments while meeting environmental/health regulations.

  Product Support

• Problem Statement: DoD’s $20+B/year cost of corrosion is largely seen in product support.  Improved, training, logistics/supply and transition of technology and tools for inventory storage & handling and maintenance are necessary to avoid these high recurring costs. Focus is to reduce corrosion as a maintenance cost and availability driver. Those tactics and efforts that are valuable to the DoD will also serve as valuable to industry, as degradation of public systems is increasingly prevalent.