CREARE LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A12-014

Description

Tantalum alloy and silicon nitride gun barrel liners have demonstrated excellent corrosion resistance and wear characteristics for U.S. Army applications. The quality and accuracy of the rifling profile is critical; however, the processes and tooling needed to successfully rifle a gun barrel made from these advanced materials have not been developed due to the difficulty of machining the materials. Tantalum and its alloys possess a gummy consistency, low thermal conductivity, and low specific heat. These elements combine to increase the cutting forces in the machining zone, thus causing the material to weld to the cutting edge during machining and gall. In the case of silicon nitride, the extremely high hardness of the ceramic material precludes the use of conventional broaching operations due to high tool wear, catastrophic failure of the part, or poor machined surface quality. Creare"s innovation is an Indirectly Cooled Broaching System (ICBS) that combines a progressive broaching tool with our proven Indirect Cooling System (ICS) to enable effective and accurate rifling of advanced material gun barrel liners. We anticipate that our innovation will reduce cutting forces, increase quality, and extend tool life, thus enabling the best technology to be affordably delivered to the U.S. warfighter.