Page 42: of Marine News Magazine (October 2020)

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COATINGS AND CORROSION

Naval Fuel-related

Assets Protected by

Coatings and New

Robust Standards © Mohok / Adobe Stock

By Terrance Mayes he U.S. Navy has many assets other than its sea- These Navy and U.S. federal paint standards were based born vessels to care for, and recently it adopted on the chemical composition of paint and bore names like new standards to protect those that are fuel- TT-E-489 Enamel, Alkyd, Gloss, Low VOC Content; TT-

T related. Naval Facilities Engineering Command P-29 Paint, Latex; and A-A-2962 Enamel, Alkyd.

(NAVFAC) contracted with Master Painter Institute In the 1990s, the U.S. government determined it was cost- (MPI) services to establish product standards for interior prohibitive to run their own paint lab and test regimen, so carbon-steel fuel pipes, interior welded fuel tanks, exte- a presidential order directed the Navy to seek out and adopt rior steel systems and waterfront steel structures. These the best available alternative system of paint standards. new standards, known as the MPI 500 Series Standards, MPI offered two critical advantages over the current are for use in numerous aspects of work involving special- Navy/federal program: ized Department of Defense (DoD) petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) facilities as well as shoreline structures 1. Performance-based standards and construction. Traditional paint standards were composition-based and essentially prescribed a recipe for a particular kind of paint and most were for product types with well-established per-

NAVAL COATING ORIGINS

The Navy’s love affair with paint has a long history, and formances and service lives. This approach worked well enough with the industry producing the same technologies in its heyday involved a robust program for paint chem- ists and labs to develop and manage their paint standards. for decades, but proved to be a liability when the leap was

October 2020 42 MN