1. Application by Armed Services: DoD Benefits
Composite materials are increasingly used in DoD weapon systems with little improvement in processing in decades. Material State Management optimizes the processing of composite parts to improve product quality and throughput.
Cost to government is millions of dollars each year in scrapped parts, lost time, delays in returning weapon systems to service and lost opportunity to improve performance and reduce production costs.
Quality and throughput vastly improved by classifying the tooling to manage heat transfer in ovens and autoclaves used in the production and repair of composites.
Realized Savings
to Date:
$1.4M
CTMA Investment - $744K;
Industry Cost Share - $4.4M
Heat Transfer Classification for Production Tooling and Composite Repairs - DoD Potential Cost Benefits $3.74M/year assuming similar per part savings for helicopter blades and radomes as being realized in private industry
Application by Armed Services:
DoD Benefits
CTMA Sponsored:
Corpus Christi Army Depot – control system software platforms have been installed and used in the manufacture of composite helicopter blades.
Ogden Air Logistics Center - uses control system for manufacturing of F-16 leading edge repair parts and is laying the foundation for improved composite fabrication methods to be used on the F-22.
Activity Sponsored:
Corpus Christi Army Depot – purchased laboratory equipment needed to supplement the use of the autoclave control system.
Ogden Air Logistics Center – purchased control system allowing for the use of material-state based processing of composites.
Potential:
With the rapidly growing use of composites on DoD weapon systems, efficient composite repair will enable DoD repair facilities to prepare for future workload.
Level 1 Benefits:
Industry has demonstrated a decrease in scrap and process time of 35% through material-state processing. CCAD is saving $720/blade, processes 480 blades/year for annual savings of $345,600 (uses conservative 10% savings)
Level 2 Benefits:
$3.74M annual cost savings when extended to all helicopter blades at CCAD (4,500/year) and composite radomes serviced by OO-ALC (660/hour)
Level 3 Potential:
More efficient processing of composites will reduce rework, improve quality, and increase throughput. With an estimated DoD workload of $500M for composite parts, an improvement of 10% would reduce costs $50M annually.
Source: NCMS Project Team, Air Force Advanced Composites Office and CCAD 1