A Comprehensive Characterization of Environmental Severity Across 25 Sites in Nine Climactic Zones. Part 1: Witness Coupon Evaluation

Abstract

Understanding the risk of corrosion due to local environmental conditions is critical to aviation assets spread across the world. Oftentimes, maintenance intervals are set to the most conservative values assuming all sites are equal, resulting in significant and potentially excessive labor and material expenditures. While research efforts have been underway for the past 50+ y to assess environmental severity using witness coupons, recent technological advances have also provided users with time-resolved monitoring equipment to monitor environmental conditions at the test site with minimal additional effort. To capitalize on these technologies and facilitate maintenance optimization, 25 Naval Air Stations worldwide were analyzed to assess the severity of environmentally driven corrosion. This testing utilized the latest recommendations developed within the AMPP SC-07 committee and included nine different datasets for developing a comprehensive understanding of site conditions. In the end, testing successfully monitored the risk of environmental corrosion at sites across multiple climatic regions and provided valuable feedback for environmental severity monitoring techniques. This first of a series of reports will focus on data evaluating witness coupon damage.