Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) | Corrosion detection in ships (CDIS) - Sandbox

• Corrosion prevention, detection, and repair on RCN platforms is an essential component throughout their service life. This includes the aspects of:
  • unscheduled maintenance when a corrosion problem is discovered while the ship is operational and requires immediate repair;
  • scheduled maintenance to repair corrosion during major overhauls or other maintenance opportunities;
  • the provision of corrosion data into the broader question of a vessel’s seaworthiness and risk assessments for current operational use as well as estimates of the fatigue and overall life expectancy of that vessel; and
  • with consideration of the above, the prioritization of what maintenance on which ship is performed when in order to create an effective and efficient maintenance program in total for the RCN with the requisite operational availability.
• While corrosion prevention and repair remain crucial aspects of this overall topic, this particular Sandbox is focusing on the corrosion detection aspect of this problem space.
• The current approach to the corrosion detection has often been removing insulation, deck covering and interference items in order to see the steel plating and be able to perform an assessment of the required repairs. The removal of interference items can be very difficult and intrusive in itself, and is frequently not viable while the ship is operational. Consequently, the corrosion detection and repair planning is mostly done once the ship has started her major overhaul after the insulation, deck covering and interference items have been removed. Only then can the repair surveys can be completed to define work repair scope. This leads to new unplanned work that will need to be completed as work arising, which leads to significant schedule delays and cost increases.
• Alternatively, to be effective and efficient the detection of corrosion and the consequential maintenance planning would ideally be done well in advance of such major overhauls while the ship is still operational and without the removal of surface coatings (such as paint, insulation, tiles, seamless decking, etc).
• In summary, currently, the RCN relies mostly on:
  • Visual or limited technologies for detection of corrosion via inspection as noticed, or during scheduled inspection cycles and/or based on historical experience and trends, including corrosion by-products or thinning of steel; and
  • Experienced hull surveyors to determine if tile or seamless decking has delaminated from the steel deck;
• These current methods are inadequate in their ability to:
  • assess steel condition under the tile or seamless decking;
  • detect corrosion in difficult to assess area such as under/behind large pieces of equipment; and
  • ability to “see” through insulation to assess steel plating.

The end-state outcome of this challenge is to implement a functional solution for rapidly and easily detecting and informing the operators and engineers of all corrosion in a vessel while it is in operational use in a non-destructive manner that does not rely on human visual inspection or the removal of equipment. That information can then be used for unscheduled but required repairs, and planning for major work.

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