Shipboard Test Chamber for Mechanical Testing of Field-Expedient Parts

Navy ship platforms are currently outfitted with the capability for on-board machining, repairs, fabrication, and more recently additive manufacturing (AM). This capability is intended to increase ship self-sufficiency, and allow repairs or replacements to be manufactured for hard-to-source or obsolete parts, as well as potentially reducing costs and supply chain vulnerabilities. Especially with the increased use of AM for these tasks, the manufactured replacement typically uses a vastly different material and thus part mechanical properties compared to the original part. One way of verifying the mechanical performance of the replacement part is the use of destructive or non-destructive testing on the replacement part candidate. Testing equipment capable of testing any imaginable mechanical property has existed for over a century, so it is fairly simple to assemble a simplified test chamber which could be mounted in a shipboard environment to apply forces and measure performance data. However, there are several key challenge areas which need to be solved before a simple "plug-and-play" test apparatus could be used by shipboard sailors to validate the mechanical performance of parts: When performing strength tests, it is critical to correctly apply loads to the unit under test (UUT) in order to evaluate the true strength of the part in the installed application. In order to enable operators without an engineering background to perform these tests, software automation is needed to help assist in establishing the loading design. Once the loading design is determined, custom fixturing is typically needed to apply the loading correctly. Design of this fixturing to properly distribute loading across contact points, as well as ensuring the fixturing itself can handle the test loads, typically requires an engineering background. After the test is completed (either a destructive or non-destructive test), interpretation of the data can be difficult, as the person analyzing the data needs to understand both the requirements for the part, as well as interpreting multiple data streams to judge if the requirements were met. This SBIR project intends to demonstrate a self-contained test system, along with software and analysis capabilities, to allow a sailor to validate the mechanical performance of a field-expedient replacement part without any engineering background. If successful, the resulting test system could be installed at a multitude of Navy sites (both onship and onshore) to help usher in the greater use of AM and other field-manufactured replacement parts. Phase 1 of this project will be focused on developing the specific design for the test system, including proof-of-concept design for the integrated software applications necessary to enable start-to-finish testing. Phase 2 will involve building a prototype test apparatus, and ultimately testing it with a Navy user.