Cold Spray Sustainment and Modernization for Naval Depots

NAVSEA and NAVAIR ship, aircraft and ground support equipment typically require restoration of structure and components damaged by corrosion, wear, and other damage. Current repair techniques inspect, clean, and then apply Corrosion Preventative Compounds, but do not provide dimensional or structural restoration.  Additionally, these traditional repair techniques may utilize and/or produce hazardous materials and waste.  Consequently, ES3 has been successfully developing cold spray repair coatings and application techniques under SBIR Topic AF131-190, with the US Air Force (USAF) and US Navy with multiple low to high pressure cold spray systems, robotic and handheld, that provide dimensional restoration using environmentally-friendly, corrosion and/or wear resistant coating applications. Leveraging the success of these efforts, this NAVSEA and NAVAIR effort will focus on the development and testing of cold spray coatings on aluminum, magnesium and steel alloys for both dimensional and structural restoration with multiple powder coatings for various application requirements.  This will include cold spray coating testing (including inspection techniques), processing and integration efforts of multiple cold spray systems with pure and mixed carrier gases, both handheld and robotic, in order to develop required technical data for NAVSEA and NAVAIR general authorization for sustainment.