Self-Healing Coatings to Mitigate Corrosion and Impact Damage

Project ID: 1623
Principal Investigator: Christine Daniels
Research Topic: Repair and Maintenance
Funded Fiscal Years: 2016
Keywords: None

Research Question

Can a self-healing coating additive developed by Battelle be used in conjunction with Reclamation coatings to
mitigate corrosion and low impact damage?

Need and Benefit

A main goal of BOR is the delivery of water and power. Dams, pipelines, and canals are among the structures built
with concrete that are used for this purpose. In order to mitigate corrosion associated with metals and concrete a
number of coatings are used. But coatings are not always fail safe. They can experience low impact damage as
well as corrosive damage in defective areas. This causes maintenance problems and expenses, and can cause loss
of revenues related to water delivery and power generation.
Self-healing oligomer filled microcapsule coating additives may provide additional options in the protection of
Reclamation's coated infrastructure. Although this technology has been around for a close to a decade and has
been published in many academic journals there have been some issues associated with the catalyst activated
version of this technology. Battelle has come up with a non-catalyst version that appears promising. In support of
a project funded by Office of Naval Research, Battelle demonstrated this technology on several Humvee doors as
well as on coupons that were mounted on the back bumper of two Humvees located at Camp Lejeune, NC. They
also did beachfront exposure testing at their Florida Materials Research Facility in Daytona Beach, Fl. Results
showed the coatings with Smart Corrosion Beads demonstrated improved performance in these tests.
This literature and analysis study will help determine if this technology is another viable solution to further
enhance Reclamation's infrastructure maintenance and reliability management. If so, it will be useful all
throughout Reclamation.

Contributing Partners

Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.

Research Products

Bureau of Reclamation Review

The following documents were reviewed by experts in fields relating to this project's study and findings. The results were determined to be achieved using valid means.

Self-Healing Coatings to Mitigate Corrosion and Impact Damage (final, PDF, 1.7MB)
By Christine Daniels
Publication completed on September 30, 2016

The goal for this research project was to perform a background review, testing, and analysis to identify the pros and cons for using Battelle's self-healing oligomer filled microcapsule additives (or microbeads) within the PPG Amerlock 2 coating system used at Reclamation. Experimental results showed that coatings containing microbeads supplied by Battelle did not fully prevent corrosion of the exposed metal substrate after impact over the exposure time period for this study. However, these coatings showed less coating degradation and corrosion compared to the coatings without the microbeads.

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Last Updated: 6/22/20