The following are blog posts specific to Protective Covers. We hope you find them informative and helpful. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or would like additional information.
Military vehicles include far more technology than ever before. These new technologies have greatly enhanced the capability of military assets, but have also made them more susceptible to corrosion - which puts their readiness at greater risk.
It's ironic that something microscopic makes such a huge difference to protecting your critical assets.
There's a lot more to an advanced cover than meets the eye.
As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Or in this case, a few minutes spent putting on protective covers can save hundreds of maintenance man-hours and greatly reduce the risk of Non-Available Days (NADs).
When Army Aviation & Missile Command put forward the challenge to develop a more effective protective cover in 2007, we had 30 years of corrosion-prevention experience, but we didn’t have a protective cover product.
An armored vehicle is built to withstand the impact of bullets, shell fragments, and other projectiles, but it’s no match for the elements.
Contrary to popular belief, the earth is not closer to the sun during the summer. In fact, it’s farther away. But you’ll notice that the sun sits higher in the sky during warmer months. So what does this have to do with protective covers?
Form, fit, and function are separate and inseparable all at the same time. They are each an aspect of cover design but inextricably tied together.
Today’s protective covers are technical textiles consisting of multiple layers, so your evaluation has to be more than skin deep. You’ll want to know not only what the layers are, but how they function.
Turrets are notorious for leaking, no matter what kind of vehicle they’re on. Aside from being unpleasant, and potentially unhealthy (mold and mildew), leakage can do real damage to the vehicle.
For a long time protective covers left a lot to be desired. Advances in technical textiles have changed all that, but in some ways it’s even harder to modernize mindsets than to modernize covers.
Every military base presents its own set of climate challenges. Some are in tropical zones, others are in arctic zones, or desert regions. Even on a single base you can deal with extremely cold winters and hot humid summers.
Critical assets covered in snow are susceptible to corrosion. That’s because when snow melts, it covers the surface of equipment with a layer of water that just sits there.
What’s the most important component of a car? You could argue it’s the engine, but an engine isn’t much good without a transmission. And a transmission isn’t much use without axels and wheels. Steering and brakes are pretty important as well.
Understandably, most people think first about what a cover keeps out, but what’s arguably even more important is what it lets out.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of a protective cover being freeze-proof. When a cover freezes, it gains weight and takes on the shape of what it’s covering.
Weapons systems, aircraft, vehicles, they’re all becoming more sophisticated - which means they’re all becoming more sensitive and susceptible to corrosion.
Just to put things in perspective, a human hair is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-70 microns, and pollen is around 10 microns. The fine sand, also known as “moon dust,” found in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, is 1 micron.
Air permeability is crucial in an effective cover because it prevents moisture from building up under the cover. In order to make our covers highly air-permeable, we use a patented textile that includes a remarkable membrane.
