Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) has entered the final stages of a partnership with academia to develop a system that can test the material corrosion of naval weapon systems.
NSWC PHD partnered with the University of California, Santa Barbara to develop an automated corrosion testing system (ACTS), Naval Sea Systems Command said Wednesday.
The project began in September with NSWC PHD’s Fathomwerx Lab, a private-public partnership, and five personnel from UCSB’s mechanical engineering department.
The system moves an object into and out of the water to speed up the corrosion rate, then applies a liquid solution afterward. Users may also control salinity, water temperature and other variables of the test via a computer interface.
“The Navy can utilize the automated corrosion testing system for research and development and new design application, but what we plan on using this for is overall maintenance and to understand more how we can contribute to ship readiness,” said Armen Kvryan, lead materials engineer at NSWC PHD.
The team aims to finish the system by June 2021