AMHERST, Ohio, March 5 (UPI) -- Ohio's American Engineering and Manufacturing is working to lower the cost of titanium used in U.S. military weaponry.
AEM, a service-disabled, veteran-owned company, looks to change the titanium manufacturing process, the Morning Journal newspaper in Ohio reported. The company said a titanium arm on a howitzer would weigh about half as much as the 17,000-pound piece made of steel.
"The army has a desire to replace all the armaments and vehicles that are made from steel," AEM Vice President Dan Hennessy said. "The metal to do this would be titanium. The problem is, it's expensive to manufacture."
"Our first project was to see whether or not we could use some standard techniques of bending and welding titanium, a replacement part for lightweight M777 howitzers," AEM Executive Vice President Mike Winiasz told the Morning Journal.
"We wanted to show them we could do a great deal more with lightweight bending and welding. That was kind of a first, fabricating things like you would steel or aluminum, but using titanium."
