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TRIADELPHIA -- Locally made CFOAM product might someday be used on aircraft carriers to deflect the fiery blasts emitted by jets taking off for flight.
CFOAM LLC of Triadelphia has announced it will be working with a partner -- American Maglev Technology of Amelia Island, Florida -- on Phase II of a project to develop a cooling solution for aircraft carrier jet blast deflection. CFOAM also played a part in a successful Phase I of the project.
AMT has received a Small Business Innovation Research award from the Department of the Navy Naval Sea Systems Command to fund the work, and CFOAM has been asked by AMT to again assist them in the research.
CFOAM will provide to AMT its CFOAM HTC graphite foam products, other custom materials and technical advice on the project development work, according to Rudy Olson, general manager of CFOAM LLC.
The contract value of the Phase II base program and two initial option years is $1.7 million, according to the CFOAM LLC information.
"Imagine when a jet takes off from an aircraft carrier, a blast shoots out behind it," he said. "It needs to be deflected into the air so nothing behind it gets cooked.
"Panels (that deflect the fire) pop out of the deck and shoot up when the jet is about to go in the air. When the jet takes off, they retract into the deck and are, of course, really hot."
Cooling of the panels is currently accomplished by pumping sea water to them, but they are nevertheless difficult to cool, Olson said. People who walk across the top of the panels have to be careful, he added.
During the Phase I program, AMT and its partners conceptualized a novel, lightweight surface for the Navy's aircraft carrier jet blast deflectors. They envisioned the use of an aluminium-verium (Al-Ce) alloy combined with CFOAM HTC graphite foam and phase-change material.
Modelling, simulation and thermal-flow laboratory testing during Phase I demonstrated rapid-cooling capabilities following exposure to an aircraft's jet blast over multiple sorties, according to information provided by CFOAM LLC.
"The novel decking material has the potential to minimize maintenance and increase the safety factor for these workhorse devices found on all 11 of our nation's aircraft carriers," said Tony J. Morris, the founder, president and CEO of AMT. "And from a payload standpoint, the new materials constitute about a 50% reduction in the weight of the JBD (jet blast deflector)."
During the first year of the three-year Phase II program, AMT and its team will refine and optimize the preliminary design of the JBD through additional modelling and simulation, materials and corrosion testing, and thermal cycling testing of subscale samples. Full-scale JBD panels will be fabricated and tested in a maritime environment during the second and third years of the program.
The project has the potential to create new markets and opportunities, however, at this stage, the quantity of CFOAM being provided for the first year of the program will not have a material impact on the business, according to CFOAM-LLC.