COATINGS AND CORROSION
Š Mohok / Adobe Stock
Naval Fuel-related Assets Protected by Coatings and New Robust Standards
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By Terrance Mayes
he U.S. Navy has many assets other than its seaborn vessels to care for, and recently it adopted new standards to protect those that are fuelrelated. Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) contracted with Master Painter Institute (MPI) services to establish product standards for interior carbon-steel fuel pipes, interior welded fuel tanks, exterior steel systems and waterfront steel structures. These new standards, known as the MPI 500 Series Standards, are for use in numerous aspects of work involving specialized Department of Defense (DoD) petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) facilities as well as shoreline structures and construction.
NAVAL COATING ORIGINS
The Navy’s love affair with paint has a long history, and in its heyday involved a robust program for paint chemists and labs to develop and manage their paint standards. 42 MN
These Navy and U.S. federal paint standards were based on the chemical composition of paint and bore names like TT-E-489 Enamel, Alkyd, Gloss, Low VOC Content; TTP-29 Paint, Latex; and A-A-2962 Enamel, Alkyd. In the 1990s, the U.S. government determined it was costprohibitive to run their own paint lab and test regimen, so a presidential order directed the Navy to seek out and adopt the best available alternative system of paint standards. MPI offered two critical advantages over the current Navy/federal program: 1. Performance-based standards Traditional paint standards were composition-based and essentially prescribed a recipe for a particular kind of paint and most were for product types with well-established performances and service lives. This approach worked well enough with the industry producing the same technologies for decades, but proved to be a liability when the leap was October 2020
