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>> My name is Jerry Curran,
I'm a corrosion engineer

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at the KSC Corrosion
Technology Laboratory.

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My two co-workers, Dr. Eliza
Montgomery and Dr. Mark Kolody.

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They also work with us here.

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We're at the beachside
atmospheric test site

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and this is where we do all
our outdoor real time testing.

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This site was originally
established

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in late '60s, early '70s.

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It started out with 300 foot
long by 30 foot wide site here.

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Over the years, it's
been expanded twice.

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Now we're 900 feet long.

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So the reason we're here, the
reason the site was established,

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was to provide a testing site

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for protective coatings
for our launch pads.

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And test and qualify coatings
for NASA coating standard 5008.

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So what we have in front

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of us here is a typical
standardized test.

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And what we do, so we use two
different types of panels.

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We use what we call
our composite panel,

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they're all steel panels, but we
have a one inch c channel welded

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to the face of a steel panel.

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And then we also
use a flat panel,

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a flat steel panel
in our testing.

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So, what the testing compromises
of is we take a coating system,

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a liquid coating system
from a coating manufacturer

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and we apply, we mix
and apply here on site

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and we prepare a set
of primer-only panels.

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And then we also prepare
a set of primer mid coat,

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top coat full system,
full stack up coatings.

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So we test them in
both configurations.

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And what we see here, this, this
testing right here compromise,

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consists of 10 different
coating systems.

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And you can see, so,
I'll just number the

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like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and
the rest over here we'll see

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in a minute, are the
same coating systems.

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So this is the primers, and
then the primers top coats,

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same, same systems.

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So what you can see here
is these panels have been

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out here since August of 2012.

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So this August will be
four years of exposure

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and you can see differences in
performance of the coatings.

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And what we're looking at
here is we were looking

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at non-zinc systems.

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And you can tell from the video
that we weren't very lucky in,

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or successful in finding any.

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The two systems that are
actually performing well are

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zinc systems.

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All the rest of them
are non-zinc.

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This one is working well,

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and as far as corrosion
resistance goes,

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but there were other issues

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with the coating that's
not working out so well.

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So we can walk down and look
at some of the other systems.

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Okay, so this is the
same coating systems

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that we saw earlier.

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But these coatings have
the same primers as we saw.

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But it has a mid-coat, top
coat, or railroad system,

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so a full stack up
coating system.

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So you can see the coating you
saw before, they still match

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up with system
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

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These are the two zinc systems
that were performing well

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over there and the rest
of the non-zinc systems

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that were not doing very well,

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primer or with the
full stack-up system.

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And of course, we still
have the one non-zinc system

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that was doing so well
but had some other issues.

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If we can look over here,

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we have the same coating
systems but on flat panels.

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And what we do with flat panels
is we actually intentionally

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scribe these or damage the
coating and see what happens.

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So the two, the same layout,
system 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

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These are the two zinc systems

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and the rest are
non-zinc systems.

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Basically, this is the
panel coating configuration

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for the NASA coatings
qualification test.

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What we do is we, these
things are exposed out here

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for 18 months, we look at
them about every 6 months,

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we do color and gloss
measurements on them,

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we do corrosion evaluations
on them.

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All the valuations are
using ASTM standards

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and they all have
different numbers

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and rating systems
for the evaluations.

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So, if they meet a
certain requirement,

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ACE 10 standard requirement
number, after 18 months

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of exposure, they get put

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on our approved products
list initially.

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And then we leave them out
here for up to five years

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and they have to perform
adequately the same

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for the five-year period
to remain on the list.

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If they don't, then we
remove them from the list.

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>> We are about half a mile
from one of the launch pads

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and a mile away from
Pad A and B.

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And what we actually do
here is we want to be sure

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that we know our
corrosion rate all the time.

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So, because it does
vary year to year.

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And so we take these carbon
steel panels and we put them

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out every single month,
pull them off after a year

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so that we can get seasonal
and corrosion rates.

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And right here would be a panel
that's off for a month and then

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up here, this is going to be a
panels that are on for a year.

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So you can see there
is a huge difference

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in the condition of the panel.

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So since 1997 we have had
this weather station here

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to continuously monitor
all the weather conditions,

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precipitation, temperature,
relative humidity,

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so that we understand what our
weather conditions are and how

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that relates to our corrosion
rates out at the beach site.

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And so what we also do here,

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is we want to monitor the salt
concentration coming off the

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Atlantic Ocean.

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So we have these wicks

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and they're actually
just cotton wicks.

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And they're out here for one
month, and we pull them off,

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and so that also allows us

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to get the seasonal
chloride concentration

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that we basically we're seeing
on the panels every month.

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And we relate that to
the weather conditions,

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the precipitation and also
the corrosion rate we just

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looked at.

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>> So this is our
Seawater Immersion site.

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Seawater spray down test.

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What you're looking at now is
the seawater spray down test

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that mimics ship board corrosion
activities or any place

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that you want to have sea
water directly applied

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to your experiments.

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So we can set the timer to
have these spray heads come

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on in one-minute intervals
throughout the hour.

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So it gives you a wet-dry cycle.

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And it's facing a
southerly exposure

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so you get the UV during the
day and then you get the cyclic

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of wet-dry and night
and day exposures.

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This is seawater immersion tank.

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And right now we
have an experiment

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in there that's doing
tidal exposure.

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So the water rises and lowers
to immerse your samples

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in the water and then dry.

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So it also does the
wet dry-cycle.

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And this can also
be set on a timer.

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Right now it's set on 2
hours wet and 2 hours dry.

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So 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week, 365 days a year.

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>> I think one of the
things I like most

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about my job is being able

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to help customers
solve their problems.

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If you look behind us, we
have this solar panel array.

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That customer came to us
looking for corrosion protection

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to their product, but
they were also looking

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at the efficiency
of their product.

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We were able to hook
this up to the internet

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so that they could
get live data.

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They can compare the actual
data of their array to the model

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that they had at their facility.

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Many people assume that we only
work for NASA but we also work

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for Department of Defense
as well as private industry

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as in this case over here
with the solar panels.

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This is another example
what we do to help people

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with their everyday lives.

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As you can see, these are
car hoods, automobile hoods.

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And this represents
something else that we do.

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We're trying to produce
a product

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or help a manufacturer
produce a product.

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Something that's
going to last longer,

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something that's
going to be better.

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In this case, these
are automobile hoods.

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Something that everybody
owns or they will

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at some point in their life.

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We want it to last
as long as possible.

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We want it to look as
good as long as possible.

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And that's really one of
the reasons we're here.

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>> The best qualification and
coatings process, we're looking

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at coatings is this, is just
this natural environment.

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We're getting all
the elements in one

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because there's no calculation,

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there's no model that's really
going to be able to conclude all

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of the environmental
factors when you're looking

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at corrosion coatings.

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