Combat Vehicle Weight Reduction by Materials Substitution: Proceedings of a Workshop (2018)
Chapter: Appendix A: Statement of Task
A
Statement of Task
This 2-day public workshop will discuss future advances in weight reduction by materials substitution for vehicles, including, but not limited to topics such as Armor, Structure, Automotive Parts, and Armaments. Vehicle weight reduction is an effective strategy for improving fuel consumption in civilian vehicles. For combat vehicles, it presents not only an important opportunity to reduce fuel use and associated logistics, but also important advantages in transport and mobility on the battlefield. This workshop will focus on materials substitution as a means towards weight reduction. It will examine possibilities for weight reduction in the vehicle structure, power train and running gear, and armor and armaments, while meeting system level performance and life cycle sustainment requirements it will also investigate the feasibility of weight reduction goals in the 50-60 percent range by the 2030-2040 timeframe principally by engineering methods using materials substitution.
The workshop is divided into three main topics:
- Armor issues,
- Structure and automotive issues, and
- System effects and testing.
Potential sub-topics include the development of new metal alloys, ceramics, glass materials and composites, with attention to engineering approaches to take advantage of the new materials. It is not the intent of this workshop to address the full systems engineering trade space for a lightweight force, but rather to focus on contributions to light-weighting engineering enabled by advances in materials substitution.
