Facilities

• KSC Beachside Corrosion Laboratory
• Beachside Atmospheric Test Facility
• Atmospheric Test Facility
• Flowing Seawater Test Facility
• On-Site Electrochemistry Laboratory and Monitoring Station
• Coatings Application Laboratory
• Accelerated Corrosion Testing

Flowing Seawater Test Facility

The seawater immersion system is utilized for the evaluation of protective coatings, metal alloys, reinforced concrete composites and other materials in an ocean environment. This system is composed of two immersion tanks with a continuous once-through, filtered supply of seawater, and has the ability to expose a variety of specimens, including test coupons, component hardware or full scale test articles.

This seawater is pumped directly from the Atlantic Ocean and is representative of surface oceanic conditions. (Natural seawater has been documented as more corrosive than artificial seawater or simple salt solutions.) Specialized tests can be designed to study impingement-corrosion, erosion-corrosion, cavitation and other velocity effects. Both 110 volt power and data acquisition connections are available at the facility to power test articles and record onboard data instrumentation outputs. The water in the tanks is continuously monitored for salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH.

The inlet to our site is on the open ocean providing:

1. a continuously refreshed source of clean, natural seawater.
2. seasonal water temperatures varying from 20^o to 28^oC.

The site has the capability of exposing samples in a wide variety of racks and sample configurations. The flowing seawater tanks are especially useful for replicating exposures in industrial facilities using seawater piping systems.