Virtual design of inhibited primers

Innovative new methods are required to cut the development time of new materials (currently in excess of 15 years) so that it is commensurate with the development time of new aircraft (less than 8 years). Virtual design of materials would allow selection of material designs that have a high probability of fulfilling their design function and thus focus material development. It requires the integration of models from the molecular to engineering scale. This paper reports on this platform and the actual models across the scales. The models include: molecular scale models defining corrosion inhibitor/surface interactions and inhibitor movement, models of pit initiation and propagation, microclimate models defining conditions in and on the exterior of an aircraft and damage accumulation models that keep track of the advance of damage. The system can estimate the life of a range of primers with different inhibitors for different flight patterns.