NLOS Heavy Metal Free Coatings for Bores of Landing Gear Struts

Many landing gear components are currently electroplated with Electrolytic Hard Chrome (EHC) coatings which is a hazardous application process on the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) Action List. Replacement of these EHC wear resistant materials with environmentally compliant coatings is being sought by the military and aerospace industries. Tungsten-carbide cobalt is not a viable replacement material for EHC because the high temperature HVOF application process is not favorable for coating the bore of landing gear struts and both tungsten and cobalt are on the DoD Watch List. Inovati has developed an Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) compliant coating to replace these hazardous materials which we refer to as Heavy Metal Free (HMF) coatings which can be applied with our Kinetic Metallization™ (KM) process. Inovati has also developed an Orbital KM Gun that uses a Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) technique to coat the bore of stationary landing gear struts using a unique robotic orbital motion. This paper will present our new NLOS Kinetic Metallization deposition capability and the tests performed on these HMF compliant coatings to qualify them for potential military and industrial applications.