Lighter Faster Deployable Assault Gap Crossing System

The Marine Corps is seeking a rapidly deployable gap crossing system that is modular, scalable, easily transportable by ground and air for crossing up to 15-meter gaps with up to 60-ton vehicles. Current designs typically rely on steel with hydraulics to put in place or aluminum sections that take too long to assemble/deploy and retract/disassemble which puts personnel at risk. Skuld proposes to use their novel ductile iron manufacturing process combined with lost foam investment casting and their new patent pending process called Additive Manufacturing Evaporative Casting (AMEC) which joins polymer 3D printing with lost foam investment casting.  Ductile iron is approximately 10% less dense than steel but can have strengths of up to 230 ksi which makes it have a specific strength superior to aluminum. Prior bridging projects enabled a 68% weight reduction, and the Phase I showed individual bridge pieces over 80% could be possible.  In Phase II, Skuld plans to prototype each component, build a prototype bridge, design a deployment system, conduct additional computational modeling, materials testing, and prototype testing.  In the Phase II Option, the prototype design will be refined and additional feedback incorporated.