Alcoa will develop advanced light-weight and durable solutions for ground combat vehicles.
Alcoa was recently awarded a five-year contract by the U.S. Army worth up to USD$50 million to develop lightweight, yet durable solutions for ground combat vehicles.
That’s a problem for military hardware: How can you develop something lightweight enough for easy transportation yet durable enough to take a beating unlike any other?
To honor the contract put forth by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), Alcoa will be further developing their aluminum weld wire alloys.
Aluminum weld wire alloys have already been proven to increase the strength and reduce corrosion of welded joints in combat vehicles. Under potential future work directives, Alcoa will provide material research, development, engineering, testing and evaluation efforts related to ground vehicle light-weighting.
The company’s research and development efforts will cover a range of technologies including:
- Light-weighting aluminum forming technology
- Fastening and joining
- Modeling and simulation
- Armor development
- Material fabrication and development
- Energy conservation
- Coating and corrosion technology
The Army’s choice of tasking Alcoa with this contract shouldn’t come as a surprise.
In 2013, Alcoa announced a joint research program with the army to manufacture the world’s biggest single-piece forged aluminum hull for combat vehicles. It was developed to replace the lower hull of a combat vehicle to improve survivability versus traditional welded hulls.
In army testing, the “monohull” mitigated the effects of blast events by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
TARDEC develops and integrates technology solutions for manned and unmanned Department of Defense ground vehicle systems and combat service support equipment.
For more information on Alcoa’s present and future projects, visit alcoa.com.
