The global dominance of our US military depends on a reliable supply chain of replacement parts for our troops abroad.  Steel castings are prolific in all areas of the military and play a vital role in national defense.  Unfortunately, interruptions in the supply chain and the inability for sourcing of... more

The global dominance of our US military depends on a reliable supply chain of replacement parts for our troops abroad.  Steel castings are prolific in all areas of the military and play a vital role in national defense.  Unfortunately, interruptions in the supply chain and the inability for sourcing of domestic castings have become a major problem.  Point of need manufacturing and re-Manufacturing of parts becomes an attractive solution.  In the current study, the feasibility of producing repair and remanufactured steel castings at the point of need from materials sourced on the battlefield was evaluated in a series of re-melt studies caried out in a 100lb air induction melting furnace.  Various sources of armor scrap was melted as a function of different welding gas atmospheres.  The chemistry of the melt was measured as a function of holding time at 1600⁰C to understand recovery rates of different elements.  A semiempirical model was developed to predict the resulting chemistry of castings that might be produced on the battlefield with locally sourced materials. less