In the mid-1990’s, the Navy identified corrosion repair and preservation within tanks and voids as their primary maintenance cost of corrosion issue, consuming nominally $250 million per year. In response, the Navy instituted an aggressive program to study the root cause of these corrosion problems and implement solutions. The Navy program demonstrated that:
(a) Early 1990’s coating installation practices tended to limit the life of the coating systems.
(b)Legacy, solvent-based coating materials being utilized were not state of the art.
(c) Coatings tended to fail initially at “edges” (e.g., stiffeners, welds, etc.) within tanks.