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DoD approves new CARC Specs

yetti96

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Not sure what this means for the guy who wants to get paint from Sherwin Williams but it might trickle down to the average MV Joe in due time. Thought I would share what I found today from my new Products Finishing catalog.

BEST DEFENSE: Military approves CARC powder coats : Products Finishing

"The race is on amongst powder coating manufacturers to turn out a new product that will meet military CARC specifications and hopefully grab a share of the $2 billion defense coating market.The U.S. Department of Defense issued specifications in late 2010 to allow powder coaters to finish military vehicles and equipment which ‑ until now—could only be done using liquid paint.
CARC requirements
Chemical Agent Resistant Coatings are surfaces that resist the absorption of chemical warfare agents, making decontamination much easier to accomplish with vehicles, artillery pieces and missile launchers, rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, and support equipment such as communications vans, water purification units, generators and forklifts.
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (Aberdeen, MD) released the specs—MIL-PRF-32348—to allow powder coating as a finish because of increased pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which wants the military to use coatings that are free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), volatile organic hazardous air pollutants (VOHAPs) and inorganic hazardous air pollutants (HAPs).
“There are many advantages to allowing powder coating to a part of the program,” says John Escarsega, DOD CARC Commodity Manager for the coatings team at Aberdeen. “Environmental is a big reason, but there is also some reduced costs we should be seeing. It’s a good step forward.”
New specs outlined
The specification for primer and topcoat contains four types of coatings:

  • Type I Coating—epoxy-based primer, chemical agent resistant coating.
  • Type II Coating—epoxy-based primer for interior components, chemical agent resistant coating,
  • Type III Coating—camouflage top coatings, chemical agent resistant coating. The primary colors required by the ARL are 383Green, 686 Tan, Aircraft Green, Black and Brown.
  • Type IV Coating—coatings for ammunition containers.
Getting a seal of approval from the DoD on meeting the new specs will be a challenging—and lengthy—process.
For a topcoat to be approved, it must be highly chemical resistant, lusterless (below 1.5 units of gloss), absent of infrared detection and provide exterior durability properties. And before approving the topcoat formulation, each color match has to be approved by the ARL separately.
To achieve the camouflage requirements, the powder coating industry is facing a challenge as the readings go above and beyond what the typical in-house color measurement equipment used today in the industry can provide.
While normal powder topcoats are often very good in UV and conventional chemical resistance, Escarsega says these elements suffer significantly when their gloss is reduced to levels required for camouflage CARC: no greater than one unit of gloss at 60˚, no greater than 3.5 units of gloss for Green, and 4.0 units for Tan at 85˚.
Chemical and UV resistant
“It is imperative to establish a sufficiently high degree of cross-linking to impart chemical and UV resistance,” says Escarsega. “However, introducing matting agents or cure characteristics to impart low gloss often degrades the agent resistance below acceptable levels.”
But Escarsega says it will take up to three years to get the first topcoat approved because of the strenuous specs.
To help the vendors with their research, his group has sought funding from the “Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program,” funded by the DoD, the EPA and the Department of Energy to help private companies develop products to be used by the military.
Escarsega and his staff submitted a “Statement Of Need” to the SERDP agency to help fund the powder coating research. It is expected up to three manufacturers will join the group and seek funding for the research dollars.
One of the key arguments for the federal funding, says Escarsega, is the amount of VOCs to be reduced by using powder coating instead of liquid paint. At about two million gallons per year and an average of 2.6 pounds of total organic solvent per gallon, he says the DoD and its industrial base currently emit upwards of 5.2 million pounds (2,600 tons) of organic solvents per year from CARC topcoat application.
“The use of solventless powder topcoats in high production environments such as depots and OEMs has the potential to eliminate hundreds—if not thousands—of tons of VOCs, HAPs, and other organic solvent emissions per year,” says Escarsega.
SERDP will make a decision on who to fund based on the research proposals submitted and this will be announced later this year.
Escarsega says he believes that in less than a year after the SERDP funding is approved some significant research will have been done to get a topcoat ready for testing and final approval.
“I think the chemistry will be ready for lab and outdoor testing in about a year,” he says. n
For information on the CARC powder coating process, please visit the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at www.arl.army.mil."


 

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I love the idea its finally UV resistant.. Tired of painting or touching up every other year.
 
defintely interesting i kinda figured that it would eventually come down the line powercoating is alot more durable
Thats for sure :) im sure i will see it before yall will as soon as it comes to that point i will try to give my opioin on it
 

usmctopgun

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Cochran, GA
Seems like it would be a lot more difficult to powdercoat something the size of a MV. Only experience I have with powdercoating requires it be heated up to about 400 degrees. For initial new parts I don't see this being a problem, but to refinish one later down the road, that's a big oven, or a lot of dis-assembly.
 
YAll aint liein

What do you mean it will cost money ?!?!?
That doesn't matter! It's taxparyer money anyway! It ain't comin'outta THEIR pockets ! ! !
Cost is NO OBJECT for Uncle Sam.



Well lets just say u 2 are tellin the truth no arguement from me sad shame but it happens not that i agree with it but it wont ever stop no matter what we try to do :]

I think the stuff might work if they can get the formulation right lol so many bidding wars its not funny :]
 

Nonotagain

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I used to work with the guy in-charge of ARL that John reports to, Mike Maher. I've talked with them a couple of months back about the state of mil-spec coatings as well as this specification for powder coatings.

You will never be able to apply powder coatings on fiberglass parts (hoods and fenders) or thin sheet metal. Heavy armored vehicles, yes not sheet metal.

With CARC having to be a continuous coating, I have reservations that powder coatings will pan-out. It's one thing to make powder and apply it to test panels it's another to apply it to a full vehicle. Repairs will have to be done using conventional type coatings as the powder won't flow when reheated.

Parts that I've had coated with this material that weren't up to spec on for thickness had to be stripped and re-coated.

The latest version of CARC, Mil-Dtl-64159 is already a very low VOC product. The type 2 material with polymeric beads sprays very well, and has exceptional UV light resistance.

As for pricing, Uncle does care about pricing. Current GSA pricing for the 64159 product is less than $75 per gallon kit.
 
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