Lead-sheathed cables serve as the primary carriers of communication signals at the Kennedy Space Center. Although the cable sheaths are connected to 41 distributed rectifiers for cathodic protection, corrosive failures continue to occur. Recently, the effectiveness of the cathodic protection system was debated. The Type III extreme value distribution (or Weibull distribution) was used to analyze the corrosion failure data. The analysis showed that the rate of cable failure depended upon the maintenance of the cathodic protection system. During the 10 year period of adequate maintenance between 1971 and 1980, the cables showed infant mortality, a failure mode characterized by a sharply decreasing failure rate. A recent increase in failure rate was found to be due to inadequate maintenance of the cathodic protection system. Restoration of the system would significantly enhance the performance and reliability of the cables.

Subject
Corrosion failures, Water, Materials, Reliability, Cathodic protection, Corrosion rate, Slopes, Corrosion prediction, Lead, Failure analysis, Cables, Rectifiers, Maintenance
© 1992 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
1992
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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