Monday, July 1, 2019

The U.S. Navy Has A Serious Rust Problem

The head of Naval Sea Systems Command is calling on ships and maintainers to keep rust under control. (U.S. Navy)

Defense News: A top US Navy engineer says the fleet needs to get out and bust the rust

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Navy attempting to keep its surface combatants such as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for 40-45 years each, sailors and maintainers must do everything they can to keep corrosion under control, one of the service’s senior-most engineering duty officers told a gathering of naval engineers June 20.

Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command, said the fleet spends billions to keep corrosion under control and that all levels of maintenance must make that a priority.

“Corrosion is one of the big things if we want to keep the ships around for 40-45 years; we have to do what is necessary on the corrosion side of things,” Moore said. “I don’t have the exact numbers, but we are spending $10 billion on our ship depot maintenance. And I’m guessing that several billion of that is corrosion-related, so it’s a significant portion of the budget.

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WNU Editor: The Chinese are claiming to have a solution to rust on their ships and military equipment .... Can a new graphene coating save the Chinese military from rusting away in the South China Sea? (SCMP).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The only cure for marine rust is sand blasting, epoxy primer and top coat, then repeat when needed. There is no magic bullet, China just has newer ships.