DISARM is a big research project, dealing with the munition dumping site at the Paardenmarkt, a sandbar in front of the Belgian shore. After World War I, unused munition was dumped here. It is generally accepted that 32.000 ton was dumped, mainly German munition with a toxic load. The research project aims to gather as much information as possible regarding the dumping site and tries to find different solutions to minimize the possible dangers.

The Antwerp Maritime Academy participates to this project by trying to assess the physical state of the munition. It is forbidden (by law) to salvage any munition so since the 5th of February, there is a large scale experiment running in Ostend. This experiment is designed to measure the corrosion rate of different materials over the course of 3 years, as well as the influence of the configuration of the material with respect to the sand and the salinity of the water.

A part of this thesis would be about this experiment, so part of your task would be to help with the different aspects relating to this experiment (measure water parameters and assist in changing the metal samples and analysing them). 

Another part of this thesis would be about a smaller scale experiment that fits within DISARM. A first step would be to look for different ways to create concretion on iron and to figure out if these ways also work on brass and zamac. In a next step, a procedure has to be determined that creates concretion that is as similar as possible with concretion found in the North Sea. Several samples will be prepared following this procedure and inserted in the testing facilities at Ostend. The corrosion rate of samples with concretion will then be compared with the corrosion rate of samples without concretion.