The following CTMA projects were recently approved:
Corrosion Resistant Solid State Thin-Walled Component Joining for Maintenance and Repair Applications
This project is specifically targeting one of the more challenging classes of weld repair and fabrication – thin-walled components. Thin-walled components often require the use of the highest skilled welding artisans within the depot infrastructure due to the intricate nature of avoiding burn through and component thermal warping. To avoid this, thin-walled components (common in nearly every military platform) are often over-engineered or buttressed with thicker metal reinforcements. These countermeasures add significant unwanted weight to the platform and also increase the corrosion prone weld filler regions that results from conventional welding. This project seeks to develop and test a new solid state joining method that does not melt the materials to be joined thus increasing dimensional accuracy, corrosion resistance, and weld cycle time.
The new state-of-the-art technology to be explored in this project stems from the use of a novel manufacturing method called Deformation Resistance Welding (DRW), which can be utilized to join a wide variety of thin-walled components common to virtually every DoD platform. Further, the DRW technology can be readily retrofitted into any depot facility for rapid utilization as the fundamental technology is based upon the well-known principles of resistance spot welding yet applied to large components of many shapes and sizes.
Improved Stealth and Lower Cost Operations for U.S. Naval Ships using High-Performance Cordage Deck Edge Netting
The U.S. Navy uses two styles of deck edge netting: metallic cord netting that is durable but very heavy and difficult to repair shipboard as well as add to a ship’s radar cross section. The other netting that is used is nylon netting that is lightweight and has no radar signature but need to replaced every 18 to 24 months due to UV degradation, shrinkage and abrasion. This project will evaluate a new cordage net that is lightweight, has no radar signature and has a Navy tested life of five years. This netting is machine-made and promises reduced lifecycle cost.
