Corrosion costs the D0D ~$20B annually. Corrosion mitigation today is based on heuristics and experience, rather than specific data on a location’s corrosivity or equipments’ journeys, resulting in less optimal maintenance schedules and increased risk of equipment failure. Corrosion monitoring is possible today, but typically consists of corrosion coupons, which only measure one data point and are labor intensive, or sophisticated sensors that cost thousands of dollars. This means monitoring is often limited to visual inspections rather than data-based. Our approach is to create scalable, affordable RFID corrosion sensors. These sensors could be deployed broadly to generate specific data on environmental corrosivity, the effectiveness of mitigation, and corrosion activity in hard-to-see locations. The idea came from Stephen Cox, a Chief Engineer at NIWC Pacific. His observation on the limitations of current systems led to this patented idea. This technology was recently awarded NIWC’s Invention of the Year Award. We are now prototyping the sensors, and are beginning two field tests on Navy platforms to advance them from TRL3 to 5. With the development of scalable corrosion sensors, we anticipate gathering much larger data sets, allowing us to develop AI-based predictive corrosion models that could change the way we manage corrosion.
