Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 300,000-watt plasma arc lamp and a touch of science could help the Army solve a problem that's causing major casualties to heavy artillery barrels. The problem is that normal wear from projectiles, propellants and combustion gases causes fatigue, erosion and corrosion in conventional gun barrel material, leading to cracks that render a weapon useless. Using the powerful lamp, researchers hope to metallurgically bond a metallic coating to a metal substrate to demonstrate that barrel materials can be made more resistant to these forces. Compared to mechanical bonding, metallurgical bonding results in far greater strength of the bonds between the atoms of the coating and substrate.
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