EarlyCorr

Climatic chambers (also called environmental chambers) are widely used to validate materials exposed to certain environmental conditions in order to detect failure points through accelerated corrosion/degradation tests that simulate a product ‘s lifespan. These tests, however, are very long, requiring the use of many chambers in parallel to keep up with increasingly demanding regulations in sectors such as aerospace, automotive, or wind energy, among many others. Early detection of defects and even their prediction through in-situ, real-time monitoring, would significantly save time and costs in these industries.

In reply to this need, the EarlyCorr project aims to develop a cost-effective and smart climatic chamber that will be capable of early detection of the onset of corrosion mechanisms and their continuous real-time monitoring. The chamber will consist of acoustic emission sensors, a corrosion visualization and quantification system, and data processing software to advance the data interpretation and decision-making process. Different methodologies will be combined to work in tandem in an unprecedented manner, complementing each other to create a robust detection, monitorization, and prediction system for اe, humidity and corrosion tests.

In summary, EarlyCorr ‘s smart climatic chamber will enable a faster and more accurate testing cycle when compared to the standard approach currently used in industry, allowing for a more efficient use of these chambers and saving substantial amounts of testing time and staff effort.

The contribution of each partner is descripted below:

• INNELTEC is the project coordinator and will be in charge of designing and manufacturing the chamber prototype as well as integrating and validating all systems developed in the project. They will also develop the system for the artificial weathering cycles including its data management software.
• SAMARTEST will develop and validate the early detection system based on acoustic emission signals and the chamber ‘s test panels.
• Senswork GmbH will develop a fully integrated industry-grade imaging sensor and computing platform for image sample acquisition and AI analysis.
• Hereon will lead the development of the اe and humidity sensing approach as well as tailored machine learning (ML) models to predict corrosion kinetics on target sample surfaces.

CIDETEC’S role in the project:

CIDETEC Surface Engineering will use its broad expertise in AE sensors and corrosion testing to collaborate in the design and validation of the chamber and the preparation of the roadmap for standardization. CIDETEC will also perform the weathering cycle tests, collect the data required to develop and test the algorithms for early detection and provide support in the project coordination.