Material Selection in Engineering
By Kurt Ansorge
Creating viable design solutions for military applications requires a detailed material downselect process. It is essential to ensuring projects meet the necessary specifications to support Warfighter survivability. Without a detailed and risk mitigated process, the project will be riddled with problems.
Creating viable design solutions involves narrowing the possible material choices by applying use case requirements to specific parts of the design, allowing for sequential narrowing of viable material choices. Considerations for material viability include temperature range, strength/stiffness, wear characteristics, density/weight, toughness, environmental resilience (corrosion/biological), manufacturability, and cost. The engineering team performs the downselect process to arrive at a smaller subset of potential materials. The engineering team then finalizes specific material selection on an individual component (and/or assembly) basis.
Matching the right finishes (paint/coating) for parts is also critical for ensuring the parts and assemblies designed for use in military applications are going to stand up to real world use cases. Metals typically need a defined coating or passivation in order to ensure they do not corrode over time. Anodization for aluminum and paint (CARC or other) for steels are typical coating choices seen in use on modern equipment. Engineers define more detailed coating processes when parts will encounter harsh environments including biological or nuclear weapons.
A fully detailed drawing package with proper material and coating specifications is critical to meet modern military materiel needs. Applying adequate care throughout the design and engineering process is critical to achieve a reliable design.
