N092-141 TITLE: Lightweight, Low Cost Missile Canister Shell Solution for Future Surface Ship VLS Applications

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Materials/Processes, Weapons

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PEO IWS 3, Surface Ship Weapons, Missiles, ACAT I

OBJECTIVE: Develop a light weight solution for the current steel canister shell used with Mk 41 and Mk 57 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS), with emphasis on design for highly automated manufacturing.

DESCRIPTION: Missile launch canisters are a critical but often under-emphasized part of almost all encanistered missile systems. Canisters can be more than 20 feet long and weigh thousands of pounds. A canister is designed to provide the internally contained high value round with an environment that is safe for transport and storage, sometimes going unopened for 10 years or more. When the missile is fired, the canister serves as its launching rail. Canisters must be weather tight, very straight, impact- and drop-resistant, and able to survive a restrained-fired event (when the ignited missile fails to egress from launch canister) without the risk of sympathetic adjacent round detonation. Canisters must also be able to safely withstand a near miss shock event as defined by Mil-Std-901 and maintain integrity with internal pressures over 100 PSI created by missile egressing from launcher.

One of the largest canisters in the Navy inventory is the MK 21 Mod 2, an approximately 25-inch square steel canister 220 inches in length and weighing over 3400 pounds. The current combined missile and canister weight is limited at 6500lbs. New missile systems tend to grow in size and weight to address increasingly capable threats. To maintain the total system weight of missile plus canister at approximately the same level, the canister becomes a useful opportunity for weight reduction to offset weight gain in the missile. Conversion from steel shell to composite material is the most technically viable approach to reduced canister weight, but conventional composite approaches to canister manufacturing will result in prohibitively high cost. Also current composite technologies do not meet the pressure requirements (>100psi) of the canister square pressure vessel geometry. The square geometry with small radius corners is crucial to maintain fit with existing USN Vertical Launching Systems and to provide ample internal space to package current 21" diameter missile and its folded steering control fins. This program seeks the development of a innovative manufacturing process –optimized light weight canister solution that reduces weight compared to baseline steel by at least 25% with the lowest possible unit production cost. The desired process may include new technologies at both the machine and system levels.

PHASE I: Design a light weight replacement for the current MK 41 VLS canister, meeting or exceeding the key performance parameters of this baseline configuration. Apply this design toward innovative manufacturing process automation, exhibiting best potential for enhanced full life-cycle affordability in acquisition, operation in the fleet, and maintenance

PHASE II: Produce test hardware and conduct test that affirm the ability of the Phase 1 design to meet the critical parameters driving the design selection. Project production cost of the composite hardware in low rate production.

PHASE III: Work with the Navy and the prime contractor to transition the light weight canister shell design to full scale canister testing in FY 2011 and eventual fielding in the Program of Record

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Light weight square geometry pressure vessels for Automotive, Air Transportation applications and low-cost, lightweight structural/hydrostatic building materials for commercial construction.

REFERENCES:
1. Zu, L., Koussios, S. and Beukers, A. 2008. "Optimal Shapes and Winding Parameters for Filament Wound Articulated Pressure Vessels," Proceedings of the American Society for Composites: Twenty-Third Technical Conference, Memphis, TN, September 9-11, 2008.

2. Legowick, Ronald, 2001,"Next Generation Composite Canister for Missile Defense Applications," presented at the Defense Manufacturing Conference.

KEYWORDS: Composite materials, manufacturing, missile canister, automated manufacturing,missile launcher,poltrusion

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