University of New Hampshire to Benefit from Defense Appropriations
Navymoney
The Eagle-Tribune
Bryan McGonigle
Boston University Washington News service
Oct. 3
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 – The University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., will get $3 million for research as part of the 2007 Defense Appropriations Bill passed by Congress last week.
The bill – which provides $436.6 billion for the Department of Defense – includes $70 billion for operations related to the struggle against global terrorism and $69.3 million for companies in New Hampshire.
“Military facilities and private-sector companies across New Hampshire, New England and the nation play an important role in supporting and protecting our men and women in uniform no matter where they serve around the world,” Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., said in a statement Tuesday. “The resources in this defense bill provide critical investments needed to fight the global war on terror, protect the homeland and make investments to best respond to future threats at home and abroad.”
The money for U.N.H. will fund research to improve coating for Navy ships.
“The whole thing is focused on anticorrosion,” U.N.H. material science professor Donald Sundberg said. Corrosion is a big problem with Navy ships, and the university is working on new coatings to address corrosion, he said.
The university is working with nanostructured composite marine coatings – coatings with multiple microscopic additives that enhance their durability and performance, he said.
“Smart coating,” one of the technologies the university is working on, has additives that sense change in the environment and act accordingly, Sundberg said. If corrosive sea salt gets into the coating, the coating replaces it with phosphate iron, which is not corrosive.
“Self-healing coating” helps with areas of a ship that are sensitive to stress, Sundberg said. When a crack in coating is visible, it means there are many unseen microscopic cracks. Upon cracking, the coating releases adhesive into the crack.
“The purpose of new appropriations is to further refine those techniques and move others and to add a couple more pieces to this,” Sundberg said.
Sundberg is the director of the university’s Nanostructured Polymers Research Center – a group of three faculty members with their own research crews and students.
“We call it professional development for students,” Sundberg said. “It’s a great place for students to get involved. They’re outside the lab and working on real problems that people care about.”
The Defense Appropriations Bill also will provide money to:
r Albany Engineered Composites in Rochester, N.H. – $1.3 million for development, demonstration and qualification of an advanced composite technology horizontal tail for the Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter.
r Defense Holdings in Dover, N.H. – $1 million to accelerate the transition and installation of metal fiber brushes in submarines.
r Planning Systems Inc. in Portsmouth, N.H. – $1.3 million to develop a multilevel secure wireless network to reduce costs for Navy submarines.
r Wilcox Industries Corp. in Newington, N.H. – $1.95 million for life support systems and training for Navy explosive ordnance demolition work.
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