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The U.S. Navy has discovered "aggressive" corrosion in Austal Ltd.'s first new combat ship designed for operating close to shore. The corrosion is in the propulsion areas of the USS Independence, the Littoral Combat Ship built by the Mobile, Alabama-based subsidiary of Australia's Austal and General Dynamics Corp. "This could be a very serious setback," said Norman Polmar, an independent naval analyst and author in Alexandria, Virginia. "If the ship develops a serious flaw, you're not going to continue producing them." Permanent repair will require drydocking the ship and removing its "water jets,". Aluminum-hulled ships such as Austal's tend to...

State transportation officials say they have discovered some corrosion in the lighting for the Big Dig tunnels in Boston. Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey Mullan said Wednesday one of the 110-pound fixtures fell but did not hit any cars. Mullan said there are about 23,000 light fixtures in the tunnels, and corrosion has been found in fewer than two percent. He said there’s no danger to the public.

Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-22 jets began corroding soon after introduction into the U.S. Air Force in 2005 and the Defense Department plans to spend $228 million through 2016 to fix the deteriorating aluminum skin panels, the Government Accountability Office said in a report today. The newer F-35 aircraft, which are also built by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, have an improved design and use updated materials and paint to prevent the corrosion seen on the F-22 jets, according to the report sent to the Senate and House Armed Services committees. “Corrosion of the aluminum skin panels was first observed in spring 2005,...

Rust is not something the average person thinks much about when it comes to designing high-tech weapons. But several years ago I reported on a major missile test defense test that was ruined because a part rusted that helped hold the missile in place before liftoff. And in February the entire F-22 fleet was grounded “due to poorly designed drainage in the cockpit.” The affected parts were ejection seat rods. Congress is worried that similar problems could afflict the Joint Strike Fighter and has requested a report about lessons learned from the F-22’s experience. Regardless of how lowly rust might...

Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis..... Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars...... Just now breaking.......

BP's board and London-based executives were informed of widespread corrosion at the UK oil giant's Alaska field two years before the company was forced to shut it this week, citing "unexpectedly severe corrosion". On May 22 2004, Chuck Hamel, an advocate for BP workers in Alaska, took the charges directly to Walter E. Massey, chairman of the environment committee of BP's non-executive board of directors. In the letter, Mr Hamel told Dr Massey that in the previous four years BP employees and contract workers had brought to him concerns about safety, health and threats to the environment at Prudhoe Bay,...

Print this story | Email it to an associate. Vol. 11, No. 20 Week of May 14, 2006 Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry BP: Learning from oil spill lessonsJohnson, Beaudo explain what they think happened in Prudhoe Bay’s largest spill and what the company is learning from the incidentAlan BaileyPetroleum NewsOn March 2 a BP well pad operator discovered a leak in the transit line that delivers oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline from Gathering Center 2 in the western operating area of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope. The...

<p>WASHINGTON - Experts have told NASA for years that simply covering the wings of a space shuttle while it sits on the launch pad could prevent a problem that investigators now think may have contributed to the destruction of the shuttle Columbia.</p>

Corrosion suggested in shuttle crash   Weakened wing may have been vulnerable to impact of debrisBy James ObergSPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM        IN RECENT DAYS, NASA officials have expressed their frustrated bafflement over the observed debris impact on Columbia’s left wing. They have repeated studies made during the flight and still come up with results that show the worst-case damage is still far short of a mortal wound that could have prompted the catastrophic failure of the wing.        If the falling insulating foam were the triggering event, some additional factor or factors must have been present,...