DVI’s staff has over 18 years of experience working with the Department of Defense, and has received funding from Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Below are selected case studies that DVI's staff has been a part of. 

Survey of Weapon System Degradation in Desert Environments 

DVI’s President was a co-principle investigator in a major survey to document and analyze the wear and deterioration of military equipment returning from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two major contributing factors to the deterioration of equipment were the abrasive and corrosive effects of sand and the high operational usage rate. The desert sand is like a very fine talcum powder and can intrude into all of the smallest crevices. Abrasive wear caused by sand particulates is bad enough by itself, but it was also found to be mixed with oil to form an abrasive paste that greatly increased wear on the mechanical parts. It is also common to find lubrication fittings containing contamination that can easily enter and contaminate the lubrication system. This coupled with the concentration of reactive chemicals, primarily salts and carbonates, in the sand is the driving mechanism for accelerated wear.

Failure of Coatings on Shoulder Launched Ground to Air Missiles

Weapons systems have to be designed to withstand the harsh desert environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. Often times, weapon systems have to be transported without protective enclosures over extended periods while on convoys and recon patrols. This results in a severe degradation of the external coatings that provide corrosion protection and camouflage. Unfortunately, when these coating were developed and certified, the unprotected handling of the systems on convoys or recon was never anticipated. As a result these external coatings are failing after a short period of time, leaving the bare substrate material exposed to corrosive elements and leaving a shiny reflective surface that can be spotted by enemy forces. DVI’s President evaluated these problems, tested alternate coatings, and has made recommendations to mitigate this problem. 

Failure Analysis of Weapons that use Wet Lubricants

DVI’s President was a co-principle investigator in a major program to independently test, analyze and rank the performance of emerging coating technologies by use of modified ASTM bench scale testing techniques. This entailed developing an analytical method to properly match and select specific bench-scale tests to the actions of actual weapon components. The modified ASTM tests were uniquely designed for each weapon platform to accurately simulate the loads, speeds, and action movement of the full scale counterparts. As a result of this program, hundreds of coatings were tested and ranked based upon their measured coefficient of friction, abrasive wear rate, adhesive wear rate, and corrosion resistance.

Failure of Top Side Structures Naval Structures due to High Speed Wave Stuffing

Certain Navy craft are capable of traveling over 60KTS, and waves “stuff” over the bow and can cause catastrophic failures of the pilothouse, resulting in injuries to the crew. DVI’s President modeled, tested, and empirically determined the peak stuffing loads and mode of actual structural failure. A new pilothouse was designed using advanced composite materials, capable of withstanding very high speed water impacts. The new composite pilothouse also included bullet proof windows, radar absorbing technology, and embedded antenna arrays. 

Improving the Takeoff Performance on Snow Runways

The LC-130 can experience significant take off problems in some snow conditions, because of the frictional drag created by the skis. Take-off difficulties often require multiple takeoff attempts, often numbering a half dozen or more, reducing cargo, or delaying take-off for hours until the temperature changes. DVI' staff worked to identify a low-friction, impact-resistant, abrasion-resistant, and hydrophobic coating for applications on the LC-130 fleet. Selecting potential improvements to the skis of the LC-130 requires understanding why friction in the ski-snow interaction changes as the snow morphology changes with varying temperature, and why these changes are more pronounced in new snow then in old snow, or in prepared snow.