Jennifer Merck, business development director at AMPP, kicked off Monday’s “Defending Against Corrosion in the Military” forum to a full house.

The panel of experts started off with presentations, followed by an interactive Q&A session. The presenters included Robert Herron, Courtney Guasti, Carl Perazzola, Wes Barfield, Brook Divan, and Mark Schultz.

The speakers addressed corrosion as a significant maintenance cost driver, which can affect an asset’s readiness for mission support while contributing to a reduction in usable service life.

Traditionally, the basic design of weapon systemsand infrastructure often leaves them vulnerable to degradation by corrosion. Future systems will use more non-traditional design materials, exacerbating this issue, the panelists explained.

Protective coatings have been shown to help minimize the impact of corrosion, reduce life-cycle costs, and increase fleet availability. With that in mind, a key talking point involved the role of corrosion prevention technologies and protective coatings in protecting U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assets — and specifically with regards to how it can help meet the goal of increasing service life for future platforms.