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JCAMS – New Name, Same Focus

The Joint Composite and Advanced Material Sustainment (JCAMS) Annual Meeting, formerly known as the DoD Advanced Composite Maintainers Technology Interchange Meeting (TIM), is an annual event for government and military officials, industry leaders, manufacturers, engineers, and other technical experts focusing on the manufacturing, tooling, deployment, and repair of advanced composite materials in defense. In 2016, the team formed working groups to focus on the unique challenges for composite materials. What follows is status updates on each of the working groups.

Supply Issues Working Group

Throughout the year the Composite Materials Supply Issues Working Group has been holding monthly meetings to solve issues in getting materials needed for the repair of composite parts on several different platforms. Midway through the year, the group decided that they had come to a standstill and that it was time to either get DoD Management and Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) support on board or continue as they have done in the past and get their materials any way possible. The Vice President for Science, Technology, and Research at Logistic Specialties, Inc. (LSI) provided a couple of contacts within the AFMC-DLA Support Office that have proven to be very helpful in getting the support of DLA and to start the ball rolling again. The group’s facilitator, Ken Patterson, USAF, wrote a paper detailing the composite supply issues that plagued maintainers followed by five potential solutions. This paper was presented to the Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Materiel Readiness (ODASD-MR) and the AFMC-DLA Support Office who have been very helpful in assisting the working group in their efforts to bring DLA on board. Additionally, the group has contacted F/A-18, C-17, CV-22, and F-22 bases to find out how they are getting composite materials and have been working with Lockheed Martin to obtain a list of parts that require the most composite repairs on those platforms.

For more information please contact Ken Patterson at ken.patterson.2@us.af.mil.

Body of Knowledge Working Group

Over the last year, members of the Composite Materials Body of Knowledge Working Group have been pursuing three initiatives: standing up the JCAMS website, assembling a list of available composites training resources, and collaborating with the Maintenance and Availability Data Warehouse (MADW). The website, established as a Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Defense Community, provides the backbone for other working groups to meet and provides a place for the submission of Action Chits. The list of available training resources is a first step toward the Body of Knowledge core mission of providing composite sustainment resources to maintainers and others in the defense-related composite sustainment arena. The MADW will help identify high return on investment projects for members going forward. Please join us with any of these initiatives.

For more information please contact Jared Wright at jared.wright@navy.mil.

Design for Supportability Working Group

The Design for Supportability (DfS) Working Group is tasked with identifying good, bad, and ugly lessons on maintaining composite structures, including 3D printed structures, and then leveraging those lessons learned to enlighten future programs not to make similar mistakes. In 2018, the DfS Working Group continued its collection of design practices such as using fiber placement to build large integrated structures and its role in maintaining the structure. For example, fiber placement requires unidirectional tows which can easily unzip, creating larger damage. The group continues to look for opportunities to present these lessons learned to the program decision-makers, either at conferences like the Defense Maintenance Symposium or through publications like the Army’s Acquisition, Logistics & Technology magazine. It is still a work in progress, but the goal is to be able to influence future aircraft designs or at least alert program management to the tradeoffs in future supportability based on design decisions.

For more information please contact David Stone at david.l.stone8.civ@mail.mil or Tommy Chen at tommy.chen@navy.mil.

Maintenance Working Group

The Maintenance Working Group holds monthly meetings to discuss topics and technical problems directly affecting aircraft sustainment efforts with the intention to provide timely expert advice, share lessons learned from its diverse membership, and coordinate targeted technology development between the services. To date, this working group has:

  • Helped Air Force maintainers identify alternate approved materials necessary for isochronal inspection.
  • Provided technical reports detailing materials and processes to help a Navy program identify potential wear-protection materials for metallic structures.
  • Shared lessons learned from an F-35 bonded nutplate removal and replacement effort and facilitated coordination between the services for future derivations of the technology.

This working group established a forum to provide a one-stop shop for maintainers and engineers to pose targeted sustainment questions, work in a multi-disciplinary team environment, and to expand their connections throughout the DoD.

For more information please contact Kevin Tienda at kevin.tienda.1@us.af.mil.

All of these groups will be meeting and/or presenting at the JCAMS Annual Meeting on June 4-6, 2019. The event will be hosted by NCMS and the U.S. Navy at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Register by May 17, 2019, at www.ncms.org/jcams/

If you would like to join one of the working groups or speak/ present at the upcoming JCAMS Annual Meeting, please contact Jennifer Khoury at jenniferk@ ncms.org or join us at the Annual Meeting to discuss how you can get involved.