RESODYN CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A16-114

Description

The U.S. Army is interested in the development of innovative materials, films, coatings and technologies or manufacturing techniques which allow current U.S. Army airdrop related hardware and equipment to survive fresh and salt water operations with increased reliability and without damage and significant maintenance impact. Resodyn Corporation proposes for development a durable, moisture-impermeable, super-hydrophobic thermoplastic coating (SHTC) material to address the U.S. Armys need under consideration. The SHTC will be in essence a low-melting temperature powder coating material capable to strongly adhere to steel, aluminum and textile (nylon) surfaces without causing any degradation to any of the abovementioned substrates. For metallic substrates the material may be deposited either through traditional electrostatic deposition methods or through the novel polymer thermal spray (PTS) deposition method invented by Resodyn Corporation. The proposed SHTC material will be suitable for both retrofitting existent airdrop hardware at the U.S. Army depot-level and coating brand new hardware at the OEM level. Initial pre-proposal results from an un-optimized SHTC material indicate that the proposed material technology has great potential for waterproofing of U.S. Armys airdrop related hardware and equipment. The PTS technology will allow for field repair of SHTC-coated articles.