Breaking news
Alcoa manufactures new hull for combat vehicles improved protection.
| a | |||
Defence & Security Industry News - Alcoa |
|||
| Tuesday, October 14, 2014 10:35 AM | |||
| Alcoa manufactures new hull to increase combat vehicles protection | |||
Alcoa,
a global leader in lightweight, high-performance metals, has produced
the world’s largest single-piece forged aluminum hull for combat
vehicles to improve troop protection as part of a joint Alcoa-US Army
initiative launched last year. Alcoa manufactured the single-piece part,
which was co-designed by Alcoa and the US Army Research Laboratory, with
the goal of replacing today’s assembled hulls. |
|||
 Alcoa has manufactured the world's largest single-piece forged aluminum hull for combat vehicles, to improve troop protection as part of a joint Alcoa-US Army initiative |
|||
Based on early modeling
and simulation, single-piece underbody structures could provide two
times better protection against blasts—such as those caused by
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)—than traditional hulls, primarily
by eliminating welded seams. In addition to survivability benefits,
single-piece hulls can be optimized to reduce vehicle weight and assembly
time, and, therefore, overall cost.
“Alcoa is proud to lead the way in developing what could be a game-changer for how combat vehicles are made to better protect our soldiers,” said Eric Roegner, President of Alcoa Defense. “Using our materials expertise and ability to forge the world’s largest aluminum structures, we moved this idea from concept to reality in record time, and are already looking into forging other parts of combat vehicles.” The Army is now blast testing the hull to demonstrate its durability. After successful testing, this initiative would open up numerous opportunities for the military to apply single-piece structures to large combat vehicles and other applications. The hull is part of the Army’s Affordable Protection from Objective Threats Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program, created to improve the military’s defense against modern-day threats such as IEDs, using affordable, advanced manufacturing technologies. “A monolithic hull could be used to produce new, or retrofit existing, combat, and tactical vehicles,” said Rob Carter, Chief of Materials Manufacturing Technology Branch at the Army Research Laboratory. “This demonstrates new manufacturing approaches to open the design space for higher performance hulls and underbody kits. This could make a huge, positive impact on improving soldier protection with affordable manufacturing technologies.” Since launching the cooperative effort last year, Alcoa Defense and the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command’s (RDECOM) Army Research Laboratory have coordinated research and development efforts to refine the hull design and develop the alloy requirements. Alcoa produced two demonstrator forgings at its plant in Cleveland using its 50,000-ton forging press, the world’s most advanced hydraulic press. Alcoa’s engineers in Cleveland leveraged their expertise and decades of commercial forging experience to produce the hull earlier than the expected deliverable of 18 months. |
|||