Evaluation of Army Materials of Manufacture in the Hawaiian Islands - Lessons Learned

Corrosion of military ground weapon systems can be a significant concern.  The recent cost of corrosion report estimated the annual Army Ground Vehicle cost to be over $2-billion (FY 2004).  This amount is nearly 26% of the total budgeted acquisition costs for FY 2005 ($7.7-billion).  This and observations of significant deterioration of weapon systems due to corrosion suggest that the problem is significant.  Much of this deterioration can be attributed to the use of inferior corrosion control technologies resulting in vehicles that are not inherently corrosion resistant.  Although advanced coatings, materials and manufacturing methods are available to OEMs the products are not incorporated into these systems due to a lack of requirements for corrosion performance or undefined evaluation criteria to judge corrosion protection.  As a result the US Army TACOM initiated a project to evaluate common materials of manufacture for ground weapon systems.  This project evaluated samples representative of as-built vehicles, post-repair vehicles and vehicles during cross-seas transport.  The goal of this project was to develop data that would support improved corrosion performance during acquisition.  This paper provides the data collected through four (4) years of on-going testing, lessons learned as the apply to those goals and work in-progress.