The coatings used on military hardware must resist increasingly sophisticated chemical and biological weapons. Moreover, they must also withstand the decontamination that typically involves a complete washdown with concentrated bleach and solvents. The chemical agent resistant coatings (CARC) system currently applied to virtually every tactical and combat vehicle in the U.S. Armed Forces is a vital component of the overall strategy of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to protect soldiers from chemical and biological agent attacks. As the CARC system celebrates its 25th year in service, advances continue to be made to extend coating life, improve corrosion resistance, reduce environmental impact, enhance ease of use and make application processes more economical.
Susan Coughlan from Southern California has been “painting” with powder coatings for more than 20 years. She does not do the industrial type of powder coating we are all familiar with, but creates works of art on canvas and other substrates using the unique properties of powder colors.
Recent directives and limits have required the surface finishing industry to seek more environmentally friendly finishing processes while still providing protection and performance. A new Navy-licensed, QPL-approved, non-hexavalent conversion coating for aluminum offers a possible solution.
When you outsource your product painting to a coil coater before it’s formed, you are streamlining your processes significantly. The factory often begins running in a continuous workflow rather than in a batch processing method. With prepainted metal, the plant becomes more predictable.
The coatings on military equipment play a crucial role in the safety of soldiers. Providing corrosion resistance in a myriad of extreme environments, these advanced finishes keep equipment functioning for a long tour of duty. Just as important, sophisticated coating technology makes detection by enemy infrared sensors extremely difficult due to proprietary pigmentation techniques. This month we examine some the latest coating technologies used to protect our troops and the equipment they use.
A new air pollution control operation permit allowed Phillips Plastics Corp. to meet additional painting volume capacity requirements. However, the company observed continued demand by its customers for paints that could not be used under the air permit. Additionally, with the facility’s acceptance into the ISO 14001:1996 standards, PPC realized the need to significantly reduce its VOC emissions. The only way to meet customer demands and reduce emissions was to install pollution control equipment.
Aqueous cleaning systems tend to have large footprints, require a significant capital investment, guzzle electricity at a prodigious rate, are maintenance intensive, and require processed water and wastewater treatment systems. Most young engineers feel these constraints are locked in stone, but there is another cleaning option, one from the history books. If you’re willing to go “back to the future,” it’s time to revisit vapor degreasing.
While some powder coatings have provided what is commercially known as a “reflective” surface, this usually has meant simply a high gloss level. This type of reflection, where light is “scattered” or diffused, is not retro-reflection. A new powder coating process can enhance corrosion protection and nighttime safety by achieving true retro-reflectivity.
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