NCMS Project #: 142269
Problem: While no commercial industry should settle for less than the best, there are certain extreme environmental conditions that absolutely demand top quality in advanced materials and manufacturing methods. Nuclear, energy, aerospace, defense, and automotive industries must consider the extreme circumstances under which products will be expected to perform flawlessly, since lives and profits could be at stake. Increasingly stringent sets of testing protocols, inspections, and certification steps will be required to involve the demonstration of manufacturing process repeatability and the consistency of high-quality component production.
Benefit: Developing, prototyping, and qualifying advanced materials and manufacturing methods more rapidly at reduced costs will be critical for transitioning these critical items to new products that are able to operate, perform, and last longer under extreme conditions with little to no maintenance.
Solution/Approach: The intent of this initiative is to advance the state-of-the-art in design and qualification of advanced materials and manufacturing processes to improve the performance and lifecycle of structures and parts subject to extreme environmental conditions and used for commercial and military applications. Using the Next Generation Hypersonic Structure as a surrogate, this initiative will leverage new design analysis tools and qualification processes to assess emerging advanced materials, coatings, and manufacturing techniques required to enhance key structures and components.
Impact on Warfighter:
- Deeper insight into material characteristics in extreme operating environments
- Develop new materials and manufacturing processes
- Accelerate testing and address limiting criteria for material failure
- Improve reliability, availability, and maintainability of critical parts and components
- Reduce developmental and maintenance cycle times and costs
DOD Participation:
- U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Research Lab
- U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Aviation and Missile Center
- U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Armaments Center
Industry Participation:
- Dynetics
- Lockheed Martin
- NCMS
Benefit Area(s):
- Mx avoidance & reliability
- Safety
- Mx management improvement
- Survivability
- Durability
- Reliability improvement
Mx Focus Area:
- Advanced/Additive Manufacturing
