Army Seeks Patent On Durable Solid Lubricant
BY Herschel Smith
8 years, 8 months ago
What if you never had to clean and lubricate your rifle again?
Army engineers at Picatinny Arsenal believe they’ve cracked the code to make it happen with a new surface applicant, which they said could go into production in 2018.
When rifles and machine guns are fired, byproducts accumulate, leading to what’s known as “fouling.” Buildup of powder residue and moisture can eventually cause the weapon to jam, or lose accuracy, reliability and cyclic rate (rounds per minute). That’s why soldiers have to clean their rifles, generally with a wet lubricant known as CLP (cleaner, lubricant and preservative).
The new material, known as durable solid lubricant, would be applied during manufacturing and coats the weapon’s moving parts. DSL simply prevents material from sticking to the weapon’s surface. Since the fouling buildup only loosely adheres to a DSL surface, any force from the other moving parts or vibrations from firing is enough to knock it loose and keep the rifle clean.
“We see this as a major breakthrough in a technology that hasn’t been able to demonstrate performance like this in the past,” said Adam Foltz, an experimental engineer at Picatinny working on the project.
Christopher Mulligan, a research engineer who has a doctorate in materials science and has worked for Army Research, Development and Engineering Command for 13 years, said the material is a hard coating that drastically reduces friction and corrosion, improving the rifle’s reliability. Explosive byproducts don’t stick to the material, he said. The Army has a patent pending on DSL; he and Foltz didn’t want to go into detail on the technology until the patent is approved.
Testing so far has been limited but encouraging, the two said. A 10,000-round test of an M4A1, for example, produced zero stoppages despite testers never cleaning the gun, Foltz said. “The only time we weren’t shooting was to let the barrel cool.” There have been other tests that, while lab-based, incorporated sand, mud and extreme temperatures.
Not only does DSL make a rifle easier to maintain, but it greatly reduces wear thanks to removal of CPL. The oil mixes with phosphate and hot propellant gas produced by firing, which increases the volume of a buildup that can erode a weapon’s moving parts, Mulligan said. The engineers provided an image depicting test results which they say show parts of a bolt and bolt carrier 50 percent to 90 percent worn after firing 15,000 rounds while treated with CLP. The DSL-coated parts showed wear ranging from 10 percent to less than 5 percent on the same parts over the same use.
In order to keep Dr. Christopher Mulligan employed, it takes a lot of money. Ph.D. engineers don’t come cheap, and their research time doesn’t either. Paying an engineer for five or six years to do one thing in hopes that the entire project doesn’t fail for lack of viability is a pricey endeavor, tailor made for endurance rather than sprint.
This is just the kind of thing they would use tax money for, and that brings to mind the following question. Why is the Army seeking a patent on this? A patent is an odd thing to attach to this project, and is normally reserved for use when money is at stake.
For something like a secret project involving DARPA, or perhaps some project involving the nuclear assets of the nation I can see the need for secrecy, FOUO and other types of classifications. But what’s the intent here? Does the Army intend to sell it, or perhaps prevent some company inside of the states from reverse engineering this and marketing it?
When the national laboratories conduct work and research, normally the results of their work are in the public domain unless it involves secrecy (such as with the nuclear program). The idea is that if tax money has been used to create the intellectual property, then taxpayers own it.
And it’s not such a bad idea. So why is the Army seeking a patent on this technology?
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On March 21, 2016 at 10:34 am, Herschel Smith said:
Picatinny PA sends me a snarky little email telling me I should familiarize myself with Army intellectual property regulations: http://www.apd.army.mil/jw2/xmldemo/r27_60/main.asp
Read carefully. The regulation (not law, but regulation, and there is a difference as we’ve noted) stipulates a difference between Army-owned patents and personal patents achieved in the performance of work.
In the first case, forget what the founders believed about a standing army. We have a standing army who owns patents. Let that sink in. In the second case, I couldn’t care less about recognizing people for technical achievements. I know folks who work for KAPL who, because they work on Navy nuclear designs, cannot publish their work. Too bad, but not my concern and not my problem. And KAPL still gets good people to work on Navy nuclear designs.
When my tax money is spent doing research, I should own the research. Otherwise, don’t spend my tax money doing it. I’m all in for paying lots of money for good new designs done for the national defense, and that should be the motivation for contractors. But final and complete ownership in perpetuity shouldn’t be the end result of this process.
On March 21, 2016 at 3:54 pm, Ned Weatherby said:
If I had more trust in the Army and their intellectual property, I would assume – without reviewing their regs, and how they protect the people who fund their intellectual property – that the US Army only had the best of intentions in store for the taxpayers funding this project.
If Picatinny arsenal is, in fact, a taxpayer funded, war-fighting designer of modern weaponry, and actual taxpayer-funded creator of new, cutting edge war-fighting weapons designs, material and kill every bad-guy -eff em all up and let God sort em out- tools, well, good for them. But – why do you think the funding public should be subject to a gosh-darn patent? Unless, of course, the public can benefit from the patent. Hard to believe, after Clinton, et al surrendered MIRV(ing) and nuclear weapons tech, which was paid for by the American public, to the Chinese. And, to which, North Korea now has access.
If it’s the case that the patent will maintain taxpayer paid for weaponry safely in the hands of, well, U.S. Citizens, all the better. Best to ya if you believe that it true. And if you believe the patent will support all us folks, good for you. I hope you are right.
On March 22, 2016 at 6:13 pm, Adam Selene said:
Perhaps it is to limit other nations from adopting and using the technology in their own weapon systems. (Remember that the U.S. ended up having to pay royalties to Mauser for the M1903 Springfield).
On March 23, 2016 at 4:10 pm, Herschel Smith said:
So let me get this straight. If a hostile army gets one of these weapons and reverse engineers the material and process, or if they come into possession of the technology by theft or some other way, your theory is that paperwork at the U.S. patent office saying that the U.S. army owns that technology would dissuade them from using it?
Do I have the gist of your theory?
On March 24, 2016 at 12:29 pm, Adam Selene said:
I didn’t say hostile army, but “other nations.” And could it dissuade them? Yes. Prevent them? No. Of course not.
Whether or not there is a patent filed, another country could steal or reverse engineer the material or process. If there is no patent filed, though, the options that could taken under international law would be limited or nonexistent. If there is a patent filed, then there may be recourse via various international agreements, the WTO, etc. It may not be a big stick to hold over another nation, but it is a stick nonetheless. And, if the other country decided to abide by the rules before a conflict breaks out, then it likely will begin or enter the conflict using the inferior technology.
Also, I didn’t say it was the smartest or best plan of action; just that it is a possible rationale.
On March 24, 2016 at 12:42 pm, Adam Selene said:
And thinking about this more, it may just be necessary to keep someone (a company) from filing its own patent later on, then charging the Army (or contractor) a royalty. Although the U.S. patent laws now grant the process to the first to invent, I believe it used to be the first to file a patent, and may still be that way in other countries.