Improved Skirt System for Air Cushion Vehicles

The Navy has challenged the Small Business community to develop an improved skirt system for air cushion vehicles which reduces total ownership cost by increasing product life, decreasing manufacturing costs as well as installation and maintenance time, and improving reparability. The current system is primarily comprised of vulcanized polychloroprene rubber bonded to chemically coated nylon fabric, which is costly to produce and has limited design options to add additional features for attachment points and additional reinforcements. Materials Sciences Corporation proposes to focus on coating methods using low viscosity, two-part polyurethane resins capable of encapsulating and bonding through a wide variety of textile reinforcements. MSC will use a versatile polymer coating system which opens the possibility of many potential reinforcement materials and forms. MSC has previously demonstrated these coating techniques to form tough but flexible products with strength and abrasion characteristics comparable to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) coated textiles but with simpler application and more design flexibility. MSC will perform fabrication and testing of various material combinations to compare performance to the legacy material system.