In an effort to significantly reduce corrosion, maintenance and save weight, the Navy is pursuing development of new Hazardous Material (HM) stowage lockers. There are two types of hazardous material stowage lockers: Flammable Liquid Storage Lockers and Corrosive Liquid Storage lockers. Both are fabricated of steel. In addition to meeting stowage locker requirements, the material selected to fabricate HM cabinets must also meet strict Navy onboard Fire, Smoke and Toxicity (FST) requirements. Steel lockers perform well meeting FST requirements, as well as fire requirements associated with Flammable Liquid Lockers. However, steel corrodes when used as a material for Corrosive Liquid Storage Lockers. In addition, the Navy is investigating lockers specifically designed to store Calcium Hypochlorite. During Phase I, our team will focus on a durable, lightweight and low cost material selection that meets both HM locker requirements and strict shipboard FST requirements. Also under consideration are low cost fabrication processes such as injection molding, extrusion and pultrusion that offer quality products at low cost. If awarded a Phase II, our team will work to conduct FST and liquid stowage locker requirement testing, and apply Phase I work to the fabrication of full scale HM cabinets for prototype testing.
Benefit: The proposed program to design and fabricate a durable, high corrosion resistant, light weight and low cost HM liquid stowage lockers will have broad applications in the Navy, other DoD agencies and commercial markets. This effort will significantly reduce corrosion, weight and long term HM cabinet maintenance costs onboard Navy and commercial vessels.
Keywords: chemicals, chemicals, ships, Safety, Hazardous materials, Composites, Flammable liquids, Stowage locker, Corrosive liquids
