LUNA INNOVATIONS INCORPORATED — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF171-003
LUNA INNOVATIONS INCORPORATED — SBIR Phase I award from Department of Defense.
- Amount
- $150,000
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Air Force
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase I
- Topic
- AF171-003
- Solicitation
- 2017.1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- VA
- Period
- 2017-11-22 → 2018-08-03
Description
The Air Force is seeking new methods to prepare and activate high strength steel for electroplating in landing gear applications. The current abrasive activation technique is too aggressive and leaves the possibility for cross contamination of the base metal and the abrasive material, which can cause galvanic corrosion.The Air Force would like a new method of surface preparation that does not over-heated the base metal (over 425F), cause embrittlement of base metal, jeopardize the overall health of the landing gear, or endanger personnel.In addition to the previous requirements, they request that the new technique removes the minimal amount of material from the surface (a few atoms only if possible) and be feasible for the different shapes and sizes of the high strength steel landing gear parts.Lunas proposed solution is to apply atmospheric plasma technology to replace the blasting technique (MIL-STD-1504) for surface activation of high strength steels for electroplating.