US Potential for Carbon Materials Expands with Development of Domestic Sources

The very mention of carbon fiber conjures images of high technology materials. Carbon fiber is used to produce composite materials, which are highly suitable for an increasing number of military and commercial aerospace, ground vehicle, and structural applications, as well as many other end uses such as high-end sporting goods. Properties such as a high strength-to-weight ratio, high stiffness, high tensile strength, excellent chemical resistance, tolerance for high temperatures, and low
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DOD Drives Transformation with New AM Policy

The DOD has been experimenting with additive manufacturing (AM) since it began to emerge in the 1980s. Some of the first DOD AM adopters were in the sustainment community, and to facilitate joint collaborations, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness launched the Additive Manufacturing for Maintenance Operations (AMMO) working group in 2015. In 2017, the DOD Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Office created the Joint Additive Manufacturing Working
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NCMS: Fueling Our Nation’s Supply Chain Resiliency

Core to the mission of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) is to increase US manufacturing competitiveness through the acceleration and transition of innovation. We work across the industrial base to identify transformative technology to close gaps within supply chains. The ability to affordably and rapidly innovate are essential for our nation’s growth and protection through our warfighter’s readiness. By strengthening the supply chain with new or non-traditional sources, we
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CTMA Magazine’s 10th Anniversary: Technologies Past, Present, and Future

This year, on the tenth anniversary of the CTMA Magazine, we celebrate CTMA’s role in accelerating the development of many incredible technologies for the maintenance and sustainment communities. We showcase some consequential successes in CTMA projects. And we highlight a timeline of technological developments that have advanced maintenance from being primarily reactive, to increasingly proactive, to ultimately predictive. “Looking back over the past decade, we started off with
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Dirty Hardware Abatement | Elimination of Cadmium and Hexavalent Chromium in Ground Vehicle Systems

By Matthew Withun, PEO Ground Combat Systems The U.S. Army and other DOD agencies still use hexavalent chromium and cadmium-plated mechanical parts, electrical components, and fasteners on many of its programs. These substances are carcinogenic and hazardous to the environments in which they are produced or disposed of, and they are a human health hazard. This clean hardware abatement initiative is working toward the elimination of thousands of parts plated with hazardous materials currently
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2021 CTMA Magazine: Maintenance and Sustainment Enterprise Transformed by Digital Technologies

By Jon Riley With the evolution and growing adoption of digital technologies, the Department of Defense (DOD) is now embracing the possibilities and capabilities of digital engineering in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of new equipment and weapon systems. The DOD is starting to require model-based engineering on selected new programs with the anticipation these requirements will grow exponentially each year. The U.S. Air Force recently announced the use of the eSeries, an
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2021 CTMA Magazine: Cold Spray Advances Vision of the Shipyard of the Future

By Phil Callihan, NCMS NCMS has partnered with the U.S. Navy to leverage commercial AM technology for innovative repairs providing defense-essential M&S. Such capabilities are used across NAVSEA, NAVAIR and the U.S. Marine Corps but have a broad application across the entire DOD. AM is a disruptive technology that holds substantial promise to help achieve in situ maintenance and repair while in remote locations or underway. Using additive repair technologies, including cold spray, can
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2021 CTMA Magazine: NAVSEA 05T Debuts New Technology To Automate Maintenance on Navy Ships

Naval Sea Systems Command Technology Office (NAVSEA 05T) and The Pennsylvania State Universityʼs Applied Research Lab (Penn State ARL) together with NAVSEA warfare centers are pioneering a new approach to maintaining Navy ships—a portable robot and a user-friendly operating system— to automate ship repair. NAVSEA 05T is sponsoring the Multifunctional Automated Repair System (MARS) project, which is aiming to use the robot to do certain maintenance and
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