Quasicrystalline Thin Films For Corrosion Inhibition Of Aircraft Components and Assemblies

Due to force restructuring to air expeditionary units, aging aircraft are having to play an increasingly important role. Maintenance becomes an major readiness and operational issue. Annual costs of maintenance of corrosion-induce degradation alreadytops $800M per year. Landing gears are particularly susceptible to wear- and corrosion-induced degradation. Aluminum and steel alloys are either strong or corrosion resistant but not both. Anodizing, vapor deposited chromium, and flame sprayed aluminumsolve some problems while creating others. A new potential alternative is quasicrystalline thin films. They are hard, corrosion inhibiting, and are deposited at low temperatures. They can be deposited onto large landing gear components by vacuum deposition, onto small components such asfasteners by batch processing, and onto both large and small components and assemblies by hand-held plasma spraying. Technology Assessment & Transfer, Inc. is proposing to demonstrate the feasibility of using quasicrystalline thin films as a corrosioninhibiting coating for landing gear components and structures. There are innumerable commercial applications for an easily applied, durable, hard corrosion inhibiting coating. These include commercial aircraft, automobile components, and top-side shipboard structures.