Page 47: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2002)

Marine Coatings

Coatings Corrosion — A Natural Predator

An old naval submariner once said there are really only two types of ships — submarines and targets. However when it comes to corrosion, all ships are targets. Corrosion is the natural preda- tor of all steel that operates in salt water environments. The primary weapon used to protect steel on ocean going ves- sels is protective coatings or linings.

In the past few years, significant tech- nologies have emerged that offer the opportunity for ship owners and ship builders to double or triple the life of the protective coatings on their ships. These comprehensive improvements have taken place in virtually every major process involved with coating marine vessels. By taking advantage of these emerging technologies, some ship own- ers and shipyards are improving their profits by increasing the life of their coating systems and eliminating haz- ardous waste disposal costs.

Believe it or not, the primary motiva- tion for investing in state-of-the-art technologies was government regula- tions. In the United States, the U.S.

Navy took the leading role in experi- menting with and implementing new processes and products. These initia- tives are already having a positive impact and the Navy expects to drasti- cally reduce their corrosion related maintenance costs based on life cycle cost analysis. For example, initial indi- cations reveal that the service life of bal- last tanks can be increased from seven years to 20+ years. This translates into significant cost and time savings for the fleet.

Ship owners, like the U.S. Navy and commercial owners, are focused on the long-term operating cost of their vessels.

Their primary interest is finding state- of-the-art technologies and process improvements that not only comply with government regulations increase the ser- vice life of the coatings applied on their vessels. Ship builders, on the other hand, are primarily interested in the immediate implications of their process- es. Their focus is on environmental compliance (i.e. pollution prevention, waste management) and production effi- ciencies.

The technological advances in recent years have met the needs of both the ship owners and the ship builders. Sev- eral areas identified that require improvements include: (1) New coat- ings formulations that met air quality regulations and increased coating life expectancy; (2) new or enhanced non- visible surface contamination detection methods; and (3) improved inspection.

On the technology side, ship owners have focused their efforts on testing new types of coatings that eliminate known problems, comply with environmental regulations, and offer substantial improvements in the life cycle of the coatings. For example, the U.S. Navy realized that the coatings in ballast tanks were only lasting 7-10 years. After investigating the problem, they discov- ered that the primary cause of the pre- mature coating failures was improper design of the steel edges and inaccessi- ble areas. Unlike European shipyards, where all the edges on stiffeners are rounded to facilitate the application of coatings, in the United States edges are "sharp." This makes it very difficult to obtain sufficient coating protection on the edges since most coatings shrink away from sharp edges.

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