Engin's core mission is to provide innovative solutions to a broad range of engineering challenges. In this tradition, Engin is proud to propose an innovative redesign of the AAV road wheel. The Marine Corps has identified a need for an improved and lightweight redesign of the road wheel component of the AAV. The opportunity is to redesign the road wheel leveraging modern materials, manufacturing and design technologies to simultaneously improve performance and decrease lifecycle costs. The key areas where opportunity exists for road wheel improvement are: wheel design, tire design, center guide material enhancements. Engin has analyzed multiple candidate designs as a solution to the LwRW redesign. The proposed designs have demonstrated their suitability in addressing the opportunity to improve AAV FoV performance.
Benefit: The LwRW design will undoubtedly provide improved fuel economy and also improved operational availability. Initial benefit will be seen by the Marine Corps but this can be easily extended to the US Army in their Bradly Fighting Vehicle (BFV) which shares the same component. Improved fuel economy goes beyond simple dollar savings as it can extend operational ranges and positively impact operational planning and strategic implementation of AAVs and BFVs.
Keywords: Light weight, Light weight, alloy, reduced life cycle cost, fuel savings, combat vehicle, metal matrix, Composite Materials, Cold Spray Coating
