Structural Sensing of Corrosion in 5XXX-Series Aluminum Navy SBIR FY2010.3 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.3 Topic No.: N103-227 Topic Title: Structural Sensing of Corrosion in 5XXX-Series Aluminum Proposal No.: N103-227-0615 Firm: Acellent Technologies, Inc. 835 Stewart Drive Sunnyvale, California 94085-4514 Contact: Sourav Banerjee Phone: (408) 745-1188 Web Site: www.acellent.com Abstract: Acellent Technologies, Inc. (Acellent) proposes to develop a Highly sensitive Ultrasonic system consisting of Long Lasting SMART sensors (SMART HULL) utilizing Acellent's SMART Layerr technology to detect and continuously monitor corrosion damages in ship structures. The proposed system will be immensely valuable for Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) or Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), and other newer ships that are using new hull forms and structural materials such as 5XXX-series aluminum, whose physical properties and future degradation potential are not completely understood. These multilayered structures are vulnerable to hostile environmental conditions and are prone to developing pitting corrosion and other forms of corrosion. Acellent proposes that the sensors will be mounted on the inside of the hull during the manufacturing process. The primary objective will be to use minimal number of sensors with high end sensitivity of corrosion detection in 5xxx-series aluminum. The proposed Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems will be specifically designed to detect damages in multi-layered structural components (up to three layers) under harsh environmental condition. The system will be integrated with a portable hardware device which will scan the desired area of the structure couple of times a day or as specified by the user. Benefits: The objective of the proposed program will be to provide the U.S. Navy with an autonomous Structural Health Monitoring system for detection and quantification of degradation in LCS or JHSV structures specifically due to pitting corrosion. This can also be achieved with reliable probability of detection (POD) reducing the false positives. This also includes an optimized sensor network design that minimal number of sensors could perform the detection effectively. The potential Commercial Applications would be across a wide variety of industries that encounter problems with corrosion including the commercial and government offshore industry (FPSOs, ships, submarines, pipelines, drillers, risers, tensioners etc), civil and military aviation industry including aircrafts, rotorcrafts, space crafts and unmanned air vehicles, onshore oil and water pipelines in remote and unaccessible areas. Other industries include the automotive industries, railway components and machine manufacturing industries. Return