DESCRIPTION: The maintainability of specialty materials used on advanced fighter and bomber aircraft is the top driver of non-mission capability rates for those platforms, accounting for as much as 30-50 percent of the overall maintenance downtime.  Moderately high service temperature (400-650 degrees F) coatings are one example of these specialty materials.  The performance of these moderately high service temperature specialty materials used on advanced fighter and bomber aircraft has been historically poor. The failures of these materials have resulted in high non-mission capability rates and high maintenance costs to the platforms.

Recently the Air Force has refined its understanding of the environmental variables for hot engine exhaust wash environments, leading to a better definition of the requirements for specialty materials used in these areas. These revised requirements provide an opportunity for the development of novel moderate temperature polymeric specialty coating that can be spray-applied and cured similarly to other polymeric coatings used on the aircraft outer-mold line.
 

PHASE I: Develop a polymeric absorbing coating serviceable -65 < T < 650 degrees F. Must be traditional spray applied (~10 mil) to bare composite/Ti substrates with environmental conditions of 60-80°F & 45-65% RH. Preferred cure < 24 h (ambient), or max forced cure < 250°F. ID all required primers/adhesion promoters. Deliver 4 formulations max w/spec sheets, applied to at least 5 1'x1' panels (per formulation).
 

PHASE II: Extend application EnCon to 50-95 degrees F & 35-85 percent RH. ID cure/property trade-offs. Validate resistance to standard and platform specific fluids (aircraft fuels, hydraulic oils, etc). Demo scalability to batches > 10 gal w/< 10 percent variability in physical properties. Provide an ROI and/or cost benefit analysis. Deliver 2 formulation variations max w/spec sheets, applied to at least 5 2'x2' panels (per variation), ROI, trade-study, cost benefit analysis and detailed scale-up plan.
 

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Qualification activities shall be performed. Other activities leading up to a T-2 flight test shall be performed.
 

REFERENCES:

1. TO 1-1-8.  Technical Manual, “Application and Removal of Organic Coatings, Aerospace and Non-Aerospace Equipment.”  12 JAN 2010 (change 15 – 4 JUL 2015).
 

2. TO 1-1-691.  Technical Manual, “Cleaning and Corrosion Prevention and Control, Aerospace and Non-Aerospace Equipment.” 9 NOV 2009 (change 10—14 JAN 2015).