The objective of this Topic Area is to develop sustainable corrosion mitigating pretreatments, coatings, or other corrosion mitigation solutions that decrease the cost of maintenance of weapons systems and platforms. In particular, ESTCP intends for funded efforts to develop more of a systems approach towards corrosion mitigation to make improvements beyond individual material and chemical technology developments.

The following technology focal areas are of interest: 

  • Corrosion resistant sealants 
  • Improved methodologies to join dissimilar materials 
  • Improved methodologies to reduce exposure of corrosion susceptible alloys to corrosive environments 
  • Flexible primers that have shown an ability to reduce corrosion rates
  • Materials with increased corrosion resistance 
  • Other corrosion mitigating technologies that directly pertain to Department of Defense (DoD) weapons systems and platforms

The following areas are of interest only in combination with the above technology focal areas: 

  • Pretreatment formulations 
  • New primer formulations in accordance with MIL-DTL-53022, MIL-DTL-53030, MIL-PRF-23377, MIL-PRF-85582 protective primers 
  • Corrosion prevention compounds

The proposed effort must demonstrate that the commercial solution focused on effective and sustainable resource management. The proposed effort must also demonstrate that the technology will result in reduced cost to maintain the weapons systems or platform while also having reasonable initial acquisition costs.

The materials and processes to be demonstrated should already be developed to a minimum Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 4, and the proposed project should mature them to TRL 7 or higher. Field testing in military relevant environments on general military weapons systems and platforms components, parts, sub-systems, or sections should be included in the proposed project. Alternative solutions should be production-level materials rather than laboratory-scale samples. Projects must demonstrate producibility, defined as the ability to be produced in the near term to meet the current weapons systems and platforms requirements.

Proposals should include a plan to conduct an appropriately-scaled Sustainability Analysis1,2 to inform financial decisions regarding incumbent and alternatives to aid in technology transition.

The benefits of this work are expected to be corrosion mitigating solutions for DoD assets with improved corrosion mitigation performance, increased sustainability, and reduced cost.

Hexavalent chromium, cadmium, and other toxic heavy metals work very well in corrosion mitigating solutions but have sustainment risks. The DoD is developing and implementing alternatives to these technologies.