Large Format Resistive Arrays (LFRA) for Infrared Scene Projectors (IRSP)

Oil lubricated gearboxes can be very costly with oil life and maintenance issues, complex sealing, seal shelf life issues, and oil sump requirements. Barber-Nichols Inc. will investigate alternative lubrication concepts to reduce these costs.Investigation areas will be water lubrication, dry or semi-dry lubrication, and material selection. These concepts have potential of significantly reducing gearbox complexity and resultant cost but include the challenges of boundary lubrication, heatrejection, and wear. BNI's experience with very highly loaded gearboxes, gear and bearing design with low viscosity fluids, and extreme applications (cryogenic to 2600F) make them uniquely qualified for success in this challenge.Today's torpedo sonar transducers are manufactured in large lots then individually tested and hand sorted into similar response groups. This hand labor and low yield manufacturing process adds significant cost to sonar arrays. Materials Systems Inc. hasa patented injection molding process for piezocomposites that yields a large sheet of very uniform property piezocomposite material. When cut into pieces it provides very uniform elements. MSI has also developed manufacturing process controls andtransducer construction methods that provide high electroacoustic repeatability among phased array elements and assemblies. MSI will use this technology to make torpedo transducers more affordable.An alternative lubrication gearbox could allow dramatic cost savings through decreased complexity, elimination of seals and associated shelf life issues, and an integrated feedpump design with resulting part count reduction. Reduction in gearbox sizecould enable added torpedo range or warhead size. These benefits would increase torpedo affordability. These concepts can also be used in other short life power transmission applications such as aircraft engine oil loss scenarios, missile applications,and space launch vehicle applications.Improving sonar transducer uniformity will also make torpedoes more affordable. If successful, the work performed in transducer uniformity under this program could practically eliminate the hand labor component of sonar assembly cost thereby drivingtorpedo system cost down. This technology could be used for all sonar applications in Navy and commercial ships, submarines, and other underwater applications.