TAGS: Marine / Protective Coatings
The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire, announces the creation of three new facilities on Treat Island, Maine, in Fairbanks, Alaska and in Hanover for the testing of coatings to withstand and even mitigate ice adhesion and corrosion.
Durability of New Coatings & Surface Treatments
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These are enduring assets that will help us understand the durability of new coatings and surface treatments to transition these technologies to protect real assets in the field,” said Dr. Emily Asenath-Smith, research materials engineer and lead of the Ice Adhesion Facility at ERDC’s CRREL.
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We’ll be tracking the weather, and we’ll have camera monitoring at each site, so researchers will have visual and meteorological data to pair with data on coating performance at each location,” continued Dr. Asenath-Smith.
Asenath-Smith collaborated over several years with ERDC’s Paint Technology Center of Expertise, led by Dr. Rebekah Wilson, at the Construction and Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign, Illinois, to establish the new facilities.
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CERL has had the capability to expose coatings to outdoor conditions in their environment for a long time. Across the Army and the federal government, the coldest place they’ve tested coating technologies is in Champaign, so our new facilities are a big expansion of capabilities,” stated Dr. Asenath-Smith.
Develop New Cold Weather Coating Technologies
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This capability, to test coatings in these cold, tremendously inhospitable climates, is completely new for a federal laboratory,” said Dr. Wilson. “
This seems like it’s going to open up a lot of possibilities to develop new cold weather coating technologies.”
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The cold water gets icy in the winter, and in this environment, the coated test panels are exposed to cyclic immersion in salt water, freezing and thawing conditions, and solar irradiance, some common estimates are that one year on Treat Island is equivalent to six years inland,” explained Dr. Asenath-Smith.
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We had to build a monitoring system that will stand by itself with no human interaction for up to eight months,” said Olivier Montmayeur, a CRREL research mechanical engineer who retrofitted part of the facilities on Treat Island in November. The facilities at Hanover were deployed in October 202, a system was erected in Fairbanks in August 2022.
Coatings to Control Topside Ship Icing
Asenath-Smith and her team already have projects slated for the next few years to take advantage of the new capabilities. Some of the testing they do before deploying the panels and after are related to how well the coating adheres to the metal of the panels, or how well the ice adheres to a surface after exposure.
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Our main customer right now for Treat Island is the Office of Naval Research, we are assisting them with the assessment of coatings to control topside ship icing and icing on ship superstructures,” noted Dr. Asenath-Smith. The ship superstructures she refers to are any parts of the ship above the deck. The team has specimens from the National Institute of Standards and Technology at their Hanover site.
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And in Alaska, we have samples supporting a study for the Army,” added Asenath-Smith. “
That study is related to the surfaces of modular, temporary bridging systems that the Army uses. The improved ribbon bridge in particular is one they’re interested in.” The new capabilities could have civilian application as well.
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Once the military validates technology like this, it usually translates to civilian infrastructure,” said CRREL Director Dr. Joseph Corriveau. “
Imagine, if we can actually mitigate icing and corrosion on structures that are going to be exposed to cold climates, we can use that technology on municipal infrastructure, vessels like crabbing ships, and so on.”
Source: U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)