We Are All Safer

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was established by the United States Congress in 1967 to investigate and determine the causes of accidents in all modes of transportation. Since then, the Safety Board has investigated more than 110,000 aviation accidents and thousands of railroad, marine, highway, and pipeline accidents. The Board is recognized as one of the world’s premier independent accident investigation agencies
because of the expertise it has accumulated in more than three decades of experience.

This 1998 NTSB report We Are All Safer (PDF, 1.1Mb) lists NTSB-inspired improvements in transportation safety, involving aviation, railroad, marine, highway and highway bridges, pipelines, and hazardous materials transportation safety, many related to corrosion issues.

SS Great Britain

The steam ship SS Great Britain, launched in Bristol in 1843, was the first large ocean-going ship with an iron hull and a screw propeller. On her maiden voyage across the Atlantic the Great Britain easily broke the previous speed record. Although effectively a prototype, she continued sailing until 1886, and travelled thirty-two times around the world and nearly one million miles at sea. She was finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands in 1937 after more than 40 years use as a floating warehouse. In 1970 an ambitious salvage effort brought her home to Bristol where she was originally built.

Conserving the more than 160-year-old iron hull on this site [dry dock in the Great Western Dockyard, where she was built between 1839 and 1843] is exceptionally difficult as the dock was a damp environment, and moisture in the air made the process of corrosion continue quickly. Exposure to rain and moisture in the air (humidity) in Bristol allowed the ship to continue to corrode, particularly accelerated by salt infestation in the wrought iron structure.

The site has many papers relating to the corrosion mitigation efforts here.

Quoted text from SS Great Britain site.  Photo by Photo by Matt Buck.

Corrosion Results in Electrocution on Navy Ship

The Navy has ordered the inspection all electrical enclosures aboard every ship in its fleet after the Nov. 28 electrocution of a sailor aboard the Rentz, a San Diego-based frigate currently deployed in the Persian Gulf. The order — issued jointly by the Virginia-based Naval Sea Systems and the San Diego-based Naval Surface Forces commands — suggests that hidden corrosion on a hinge attached to an electrical enclosure may have played a role.

From The San Diego Union-Tribune. Also, see the Navy Times.

Corrosion of Navy Ship Exibition Models

The Curator of Navy Ship Models reports here:

In the ship modeling community there has been considerable speculation about what causes lead to corrode severely, how to arrest the process in pieces already installed, and how to prevent corrosion in the future.

The conclusion of the report is that outgassing from wood display cases (particularly hardwoods) creates a corrosive atmosphere to lead in sealed cases. More discussion here.