Durability Improvement of Lightweight Track and Suspension Components for Armored Vehicles

"GS Engineering, Inc. will develop several concepts of lightweight road wheels for the AAAV along with exploring wear options. The casting will include high pressure lost foam aluminum wheel castings, permanent mold castings, and aluminum forging for thestructural road wheel. Advanced wear techniques including High Velocity Particle Compaction, Selectively Reinforced Silicon Carbide Whiskers, Titanium Composites, and typical Induction Hardened Steel will be placed as inserts on the wheel. This willallow for refurbishment of the road wheels when the elastomer wears out. The road wheel elastomer will be polyurethane. This Phase I investigation will allow concept weights, wear mechanisms, cost and risk to be evaluated.A secondary issue will be a preliminary investigation into selectively reinforced aluminum silicon carbide whiskers of the current AAAV forged aluminum track block using stronger alloys. The composite wear characteristics will allow the current shoedesign to last longer at the current weight. A high pressure lost foam aluminum road wheel with high wear resistant inserts at the center guide wear location will result in a longer lasting, lower cost wheel than the current production wheel, at the same weight. This is desirable for the AAAVprogram to reduce O&S costs of the road wheels. Also, a selectively reinforced aluminum shoe body will last longer than the current track shoe at a higher initial cost, but a lower l