Novel Moderate Temperature Polymeric Absorbing Material

Maintenance on advanced fighter and bomber aircraft is considerable with much of the downtime being devoted to materials with poor performance. One of these materials is an absorbing coating on the aircraft outer-mold line. The focus of this effort is to develop a highly loaded, high-use-temperature, spray-able coating. Maverick Corporation, an expert in the synthesis and production of high-temperature materials, and Resonant Sciences, an expert in absorbing materials, represent an integrated team that is capable of achieving all of the requirements outlined in this SBIR topic. In order for a coating of this type to be successful, absorbing materials must be dispersed in an organic matrix at high loadings (up to 50% by volume). Coating adhesion and spray-ability become a challenge at those loading levels. In addition, the service temperature of the coating, 400-650F, limits the type of organic matrix that can be used.