Recycling of scrap gun tubes by rotary forging

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Recycling of scrap gun tubes by rotary forging

Calderone, C.

Recycling of gun tubes has been a two-year MM/T effort by the Advanced Engineering Section of Benet Weapons Lab at Watervliet Arsenal. The basic approach involves rotary forging of scrap (fired-out, mis-machined, obsolete etc.) tubes directly into a new tube forging of smaller size without any intermediate melting operation. The preliminary phase or first year's effort of this project determined the quantities of scrap tubes available for recycling and future tube production requirements. This phase was then followed by processing a sample quantity of scrap tubes from the field. Since tubes with the largest volume of material showed the most potential for recycling, emphasis was placed on locating larger tubes; namely, 8 inch M2A2 and 175 mm M113 gun tubes. Other tube models, such as the 155 mm M185, were also included in the study. The samples of selected tubes were then inspected for the extent of damage. Based on the firing damage, a standard machining procedure was established to prepare a tube for recycling. A computer program was then developed which, based on tube dimensions, generates an optimum mix of new tubes can be produced giving the required preform dimensions. Based on this computer program, scrap tubes were cut and recycled through the Rotary Forge.