Rubber research may extend life of amphibious assault vehicle
Thursday, March 19, 2015 - 08:01
in Physics & Chemistry
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has found that some types of rubber provide corrosion protection—and potentially better ballistic protection—for amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs). This is important to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) as they look to extend the AAV, introduced in 1972, through 2035. "Innovative sustainment concepts, like those NRL is investigating, enable us to avoid the cost of new design, development, and production of new components," says Tim Bergland of the USMC Advanced Amphibious Assault (AAA) office.