Protective Coatings

• History of Coatings at KSC
• Coatings Evaluation and Testing

Coatings Evaluation and Testing

Over the years, KSC has developed many proven methodologies to evaluate and test coatings for use in corrosive environments. The performance requirements for protective coatings used at NASA are defined in the NASA coating standard NASA-STD-5008.

The coatings laboratory has facilities for abrasion, gloss, adhesion testing, and many other physical and chemical tests necessary to characterize material properties. Coating systems that pass initial screening are judged ready for field evaluation at the KSC Beachside Atmospheric  Exposure Test Site or for exposure in the accelerated testing laboratory. 

KSC prepares candidate coating test panels in the coatings application laboratory. This provides evaluation of the ease of application, and assessment of any potential difficulties in applying coatings to real structures. Most coatings are applied to standard composite test panels. This enables the comparison of results obtained from other tests conducted over the years on similar panels. These panels allow for testing the ease of coating application over weld spatter, on complicated edges, and in crevices that cannot be adequately prepared by blast or other surface preparation techniques. 

Coatings evaluated according to requirements in NASA-STD-5008 are generally exposed for 18 months to 5 years or more. Other exposure times can be easily accommodated depending on the information needed for the particular coating system in question.