To find our more about pitting corrosion, materials engineering graduate students at UAB spent the last two years designing and developing their Microgravity Corrosion Experiment (COMET). COMET lifted off Friday on a Space Shuttle Endeavour payload with three other student experiments that originated from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. When the shuttle returns from its 10-day mission, the UAB team expects to confirm the belief behind the experiment -- that gravity is a driving force in pitting corrosion.
John Powell, one of the UAB students, said COMET could lead to the production of longer-lasting metal.
By eleminating the effects of gravity, the research team hopes to see some changes in corrosion in a stainless steel sample loaded on Endeavor.
"Corrosion is a problem," Powell said in a phone interview from a UAB lab. Results of the experiment "can save money, especially in salt-water atmospheres where metal corrodes more quickly. What we are trying to find out is more about why corrosion happens."
The corrosion experiment consists of an acrylic cylinder divided into three chambers with a shaft running through the middle. During the shuttle flight, the shaft will be exposed to corrosive fluoride, and then released into a mineral oil chamber when the shuttle is ready to return. A heater will keep the shaft at a constant temperature throughout the flight while student- assembled electronics control the entire experiment.
Once the shuttle has returned, the UAB group will duplicate the experiment to compare pitting corrosion exposed to gravity and the corrosion that occurred in microgravity.
While COMET seeks to gain insight into the problem of pitting corrosion, Powell said the experiment also served as a valuable learning tool for the UAB researchers.
"This is the first time any of us have started an experiment and carried it all the way through," he said.
Support for the experiment came from the Alabama Space Grant Consortium, and space in the shuttle payload was provided by the UAH chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.
Powell said making the experiment fit the constraints of a $10,000 budjet was an excersise in frugality for the team. But the most challenging aspect of the experiment was to make it function on its own.
"The hardest part of all of this was just that it was a self-contained experiment. Everything had to assemble itself."
