{"id":2067351,"date":"2023-01-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-cs-engineer-magazine.pantheonsite.io\/?p=2067351"},"modified":"2023-01-17T21:42:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T03:42:53","slug":"new-cold-weather-facilities-established-to-test-coatings-that-mitigate-ice-adhesion-corrosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/new-cold-weather-facilities-established-to-test-coatings-that-mitigate-ice-adhesion-corrosion\/","title":{"rendered":"New cold weather facilities established to test coatings that mitigate ice adhesion, corrosion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VICKSBURG, Miss. \u2014 The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center\u2019s (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire, announced the creation of three new facilities on Treat Island, Maine; in Fairbanks, Alaska; and in Hanover for the testing of coatings to withstand \u2014 and even mitigate \u2014 ice adhesion and corrosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are enduring assets that will help us understand the durability of new coatings and surface treatments to transition these technologies to protect real assets in the field,\u201d said Dr. Emily Asenath-Smith, research materials engineer and lead of the Ice Adhesion Facility at ERDC\u2019s CRREL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be tracking the weather, and we\u2019ll have camera monitoring at each site, so researchers will have visual and meterological data to pair with data on coating performance at each location,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asenath-Smith collaborated over several years with ERDC\u2019s Paint Technology Center of Expertise, led by Dr. Rebekah Wilson, at the Construction and Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign, Illinois, to establish the new facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The new testing facilities for evaluation of coating technologies on Treat Island in the Bay of Fundy near Eastport, Maine, November 2022. The Island\u2019s cold weather testing facility was retrofitted with new equipment, part of a project led by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center\u2019s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory research materials engineer, Dr. Emily Asenath-Smith, to establish testing facilities in some of the coldest and inhospitable climates in the U.S. for coatings that may mitigate ice adhesion and corrosion. Other testing sites were established in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Hanover, New Hampshire. (U.S. Army\nCorps of Engineers photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCERL has had the capability to expose coatings to outdoor conditions in their environment for a long time,\u201d Asenath-Smith said. \u201cAcross the Army and the federal government, the coldest place they\u2019ve tested coating technologies is in Champaign, so our new facilities are a big expansion of capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis capability, to test coatings in these cold, tremendously inhospitable climates, is completely new for a federal laboratory,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThis seems like it\u2019s going to open up a lot of possibilities to develop new cold weather coating technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planning for the new facilities at the three locations started in 2019, and Asenath-Smith and her team deployed the first prototype rack on Treat Island, located in the Bay of Fundy off the coast of Eastport, Maine, in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Bay of Fundy is unique; it is the U.S.\u2019s northern-most point off the Atlantic coast,\u201d Asenath-Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really rough out there, there is wave action and wind, and it\u2019s completely exposed. The tide changes by 22 feet at each cycle and there are two cycles per day. The cold water gets icy in the winter, and in this environment, the coated test panels are exposed to cyclic immersion in salt water, freezing and thawing conditions, and solar irradiance \u2014 some common estimates are that one year on Treat Island is equivalent to six years inland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first rack was deployed on Treat Island to see if it would still be standing and still have samples in it,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter that first winter, not only was the rack still here, it had all the coated panels in it \u2014 they were just a little bent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second improved version, along with the weather and visual monitoring system, was just installed this past
November.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Olivier Montmayeur, a research mechanical engineer at U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), along with two other CRREL employees, installs the weather and visual monitoring station on Treat Island in the Bay of Fundy near Freeport, Maine, November The effort was part of a project led by CRREL research materials engineer, Dr. Emily Asenath-Smith, to establish testing facilities in some of the most inhospitable climates in the U.S. The facilities will test coatings that may mitigate ice adhesion and corrosion. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe had to build a monitoring system that will stand by itself with no human interaction for up to eight months,\u201d said Olivier Montmayeur, a CRREL research mechanical engineer who retrofitted part of the facilities on Treat Island in November. \u201cIt\u2019s always different between engineering from photos and actually getting your hands dirty and seeing what\u2019s going on in person. We got there and had less than 30 minutes from the time we could get onto the lower dock to install the new rack, before it was completely submerged again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facilities at Hanover were deployed in October 2022; a system was erected in Fairbanks in August 2022. Asenath-Smith and her team already have projects slated for the next few years to take advantage of the new capabilities. Some of the testing they do before deploying the panels and after are related to how well the coating adheres to the metal of the panels, or how well the ice adheres to a surface after exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur main customer right now for Treat Island is the Office of Naval Research; we are assisting them with the assessment of coatings to control topside ship icing and icing on ship superstructures,\u201d Asenath-Smith said. The ship superstructures she refers to are any parts of the ship above the deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team has specimens from the National Institute of Standards and Technology at their Hanover site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd in Alaska, we have samples supporting a study for the Army,\u201d she said. \u201cThat study is related to the surfaces of modular, temporary bridging systems that the Army uses. The improved ribbon bridge in particular is one they\u2019re interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new capabilities could have civilian application as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce the military validates technology like this, it usually translates to civilian infrastructure,\u201d said CRREL Director Dr. Joseph Corriveau. \u201cImagine, if we can actually mitigate icing and corrosion on structures that are going to be exposed to cold climates, we can use that technology on municipal infrastructure, vessels like crabbing ships, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICKSBURG, Miss. \u2014 The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center\u2019s (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire, announced the creation of three new facilities on Treat Island, Maine; in Fairbanks, Alaska; and in Hanover for the testing of coatings to withstand \u2014 and even mitigate \u2014 ice adhesion and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4972,"featured_media":2067353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5553,1853],"tags":[8386,42521,42518,42523,42520,42522,42519,22637],"acf":[],"views":20,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/221114-A-L1860-001-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2067353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csengineermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}