LOW FRICTION, HIGHLY WEAR RESISTANT HYBRIDSIL COATINGS FOR THE VSRD

ABSTRACT: Through the proposed Air Force SBIR program, NanoSonic will create and qualify an ultra-low friction, highly wear resistant HybridSil VSRD coating with drastically enhanced abrasion resistance and environmental durability over currently employed fluoropolymers. The proposed VSRD coating will leverage NanoSonic"s low friction, ballistic protective coating technology which is currently under development to provide ultralow friction, environmentally robust concrete barrier coatings that prevent vehicle rollover during high speed concrete barrier collisions. Of particular importance for demanding aerospace environments, NanoSonic"s low-friction HybridSil coatings have independently validated high velocity sand and rain erosion durability, extreme abrasion resistance, icephobicity in excess of fluoropolymers, and demonstrated extreme UV weathering durability after more than 1,000 hours of ASTM G155 testing. The proposed VSRD coatings will be an extension of NanoSonic"s HybridSil material technology, which has drawn significant interest from the DoD for its unique ability to combine conventionally exclusive material properties and received an R & D 100 award. Transition success is ensured through multiple Phase III transition partners and an established pilot scale HybridSil manufacturing infrastructure. BENEFIT: Building from its extensive HybridSil technical foundation, NanoSonic will molecularly engineer its low-friction, abrasion and erosion protective HybridSil coating technology to function as a next-generation wear resistant, low-friction coating for the VSRD. Immediate benefits for the DoD will include drastically increased periods between refueling failure and substantially reduced life cycle costs. A rigorous statistical design of experiments correlating friction reduction and wear resistance with a host of compositional and morphological variables will be employed to rapidly identify synergistic interacting variables that afford paradigm breaking combinations of abrasion / erosion resistance and friction reduction in a one-part, moisture curing coating that is readily deposited using legacy spray and paint field maintenance equipment.