Honeywell Corrosive Environment Monitor (CEM) for Health and Usage Monitoring

Metallic structures are universally vulnerable to the perniciously invasive attack of corrosion. Defenses against corrosion are many and of varying effectiveness. Ultimately, inspections, some of which can be very costly, are typically called for to monitor the progress of corrosion, and these inspections are usually scheduled on an established time basis rather than on a condition basis. The Corrosive Environment Monitor being developed at the Honeywell Technology Center (HTC) is intended to change these inspections to a condition-based maintenance activity. The CEM is an environmental monitor designed to monitor the presence of corrosive agents in a spatial volume, such as the space under the cargo bay floor of a helicopter. It monitors the ionized constituents of corrosion-causing fluids trapped in hidden and/or inaccessible locations. The unique feature of the Corrosive Environment Monitor is that it calculates and displays a corrosive environment exposure index. This exposure index is intended to provide a condition-based metric that indicates when a corrosion inspection should be performed, analogous to a car’s odometer monitoring mileage to indicate the need for an oil change. The CEM is being developed under funding from the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate, Ft. Eustis, Virginia, and the Air Force, Wright Laboratory Materials Directorate, Dayton, Ohio.