# Metals

**R-2A activity** of project 624347 — Materials for Structures, Propulsion, and Subsystems  
**Program element:** 0602102F — Materials  
**Component:** U.S. Air Force · **Budget Activity:** 2  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602102F/624347/a1  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602102F/624347

## Summary

This activity requests $18.9M in FY2027, 34% of project 624347, down 5.2% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

## What the FY2027 request buys

**FY2027 planned work.** - Continue the validation, demonstration, and implementation of advanced computational methods to accelerate the invention, development, and characterization (including physical properties modeling) of next-generation alloy systems for future weapon systems. Activities include: -- Validation of first order predictions of high temperature alloys combined with novel accelerated testing methodologies. - Continue to analyze relationships between microstructure, processing, properties, and performance of affordable metallic and high-performance metallic materials, focused on current generation high temperature alloys and state of the art extreme temperature alternatives for expanded capability. Activities include: -- Determination of mechanical properties of refractory alloy produced by novel processing techniques. - Continue the development and validation of integrated material, manufacturing, and component analysis for life management and affordable structural materials for extreme environments, focusing on pushing existing alloys to higher temperatures and more extreme conditions. Activities include: -- Transition the product of in-house methodology on industrial adoption of crack behavior techniques. - Continue the validation of the value of integrated analytical tools in the optimization of the design and certification of additively manufactured metallic components, thereby reducing system cost and testing requirements. Activities include: -- Publish industry standard methodologies for qualifying additively manufactured metallic components. - Continue the development of fast-acting, material agnostic Research and Development (R&D) simulation capabilities to address hypersonic structure and next generation propulsion capabilities via metallic additive manufacturing, to provide an alternative production process where applicable, and to reduce reliance on traditional supply chains. Activities include: -- Transition to depots, initial modeling tools to assess innovative scan techniques used in additive manufacturing. - Complete the development and refinement of processing methods for affordable metals for low cost, attritable propulsion systems to support large volume throughput. - Continue research on applications of advanced data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to more efficiently address materials science problems, initially focused on accelerating characterization of materials and enabling higher fidelity microstructure and performance modeling. Activities include: -- Predict material properties of advanced metallics with machine learning tools developed for alloy design. - Continue the development and the transition of materials and processes for high temperature applications in extreme environments for future weapon systems. Activities include: -- Determination of the processing window for the development of scalable, industrial processing techniques. - Commence the enhancement of the Department of War's ability to manage environmentally assisted cracking of high strength aluminum alloys occurring on military aerospace platforms and use improved design criteria to prevent similar issues in new acquisition programs. - Commence the validation, development, and refinement of material performance models using unique experimental techniques to assess behavior in extreme environments such as thermo-mechanical fatigue for use in future expendable and reusable hypersonic systems. - Commence the development and optimization of advanced alloy compositions to enhance lethality of future weapon systems. Continue development of scalable processing techniques for improved control and affordability. Activities include: -- Validation of the energetic performance of reactive materials and the collection of data for modeling tools to further optimize performance.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** FY 2027 funding decreased by $1.036 million compared to FY 2026 due to reduced investment in developing, analyzing, and modeling existing alloys, as the results are being transitioned to industrial partners.

## Before the request year

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Continue the validation, demonstration, and implementation of advanced computational methods to accelerate the invention, development, and characterization (including physical properties modeling) of next-generation alloy systems for future weapon systems. - Continue to analyze relationships between microstructure, processing, properties, and performance of affordable metallic and high-performance metallic materials, focused on current generation high temperature alloys and state of the art extreme temperature alternatives for expanded capability. - Continue the development and validation of integrated material/manufacturing and component analysis for life management and development of affordable structural metals and materials in extreme environments, focuses on pushing existing alloys to increasingly higher temperatures and extreme conditions. - Continue the validation of the value of integrated analytical tools to optimize the design and certification of additively manufactured metallic components, thereby reducing system cost and testing requirements. - Continue the development of fast-acting, material agnostic research and development (R&D) simulation capabilities to address hypersonic structure and next generation propulsion capabilities via metallic additive manufacturing to provide an alternative production process where applicable, and to reduce reliance on traditional supply chains. - Continue the development and refinement of processing methods for affordable metals for low cost, attritable propulsion systems to support large volume throughput. - Continue research on application of advanced data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to more efficiently address materials science problems, initially focused on accelerating characterization of materials and enabling higher fidelity microstructure and performance modeling. - Commence the development and the transition of metal materials and processes for high temperature applications in extreme environments for future weapon systems.

## Funding

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 17.1 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 19.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 18.9 |

> Prior, current and budget year only — an R-2A activity carries no five-year plan. It sums exactly into its project in the request year and not necessarily in any other.

## Other activities in project 624347

- [Ceramics and Composites](https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602102F/624347/a0) — FY2027 26.1
- Thermal Protection Materials — FY2027 5.9
- Pervasive and Affordable Metals Technologies — FY2027 4.2

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibit R-2A, PE 0602102F project 624347 (PB PB2027). Narrative is the government's own text.
- **No marks, no contractors at this grain** — congressional marks land on the program element and R-3 performers on the project.
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_activity`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*