Navy super-corroding magnesium composites (Port Hueneme)

Navy Port Hueneme diving school developed magnesium-graphite/SiC composites that corroded faster than they could be metallographically polished (Latanision's work). Navy weaponized the corrosion: (1) divers crack-open packets to generate H₂ for salvage lift balloons; (2) divers pierce packets in cold water for exothermic warmth.

Two structural applications. The US Navy out in Port Hueneme, California, where they have a diving school, developed about thirty or forty years ago — people around 1980, 70s and 80s, were very interested in these ceramic-metal composites, the aluminum-silicon-carbide composites I mentioned. The Navy was trying to make lightweight magnesium composites with silicon carbide or graphite. Professor Latanision, who worked on corrosion here, was working on some of these things. He found that if he tried to polish them to make a metallographic sample, they would corrode faster than he could polish. They had to polish in oil rather than water, because you've got graphite and magnesium, the two far ends of the galvanic series. It corroded so fast.