Cost-Saving Coating Approved

A new machinery coating has recently qualified for use aboard Navy ships.

The new coating is comprised of nanostructured particles, will allow the Navy to save money by extending the service life of machinery and other assets. The first use of the coating will be as a replacement for hard chrome on a series of submarine components.

The coating was developed under the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Science and Technology (S&T) Affordability Initiative and the DoD Dual Use S&T Program. The new coating is a nanostructured version of a widely used conventional alumina-titania ceramic composite.

It is applied by an environmentally safe thermal spray process using existing commercial off-the-shelf equipment.

Nanostructured materials contain particles or grains that are smaller than 100 billionths of a meter (4 millionths of an inch) in diameter, or 100 nanometers.

Materials with this ultra-fine microstructure exhibit unprecedented mechanical properties. "The mechanical properties of materials begin to change drastically as we reduce grain size into the nanoscale regime," said Dr. Lawrence Kabacoff, ONR Materials Division program officer.

Maritime Reporter Magazine, page 40, May 2000

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First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.