Original Date: 08/08/1994
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

CSTA is using a two-step process with a sand blast pre-clean to eliminate the use of Freon 113 in the cleaning of copper crusher gauges. CSTA uses copper crusher gauges to measure the pressure in gun tubes during firing. Two of these gauges are used each time a gun is fired, resulting in a large number of gauges to be cleaned daily. The previous cleaning process involved soaking the gauges in a heated, ultrasonically activated Freon bath for 45 minutes.

Due to new environmental regulations and the cost increase of a 55 gallon drum of Freon 113, CSTA has devised an alternative cleaning process. The new process has an additional preliminary step in which the gauges are sand blasted to remove the gross gun firing residue. This pre-cleaning step has reduced solvent usage by 50-70% since the solvent is not being contaminated by the gun firing residue removed by the sand blasting process. Additionally, the overall cleaning time has been reduced by 50%.

The next step to improve copper crusher gauge cleaning has been to terminate the use of Freon 113 solvent in the process. In place of Freon, an air bubbler filled with Safety Kleen solvent is now used to clean the gauges after they have been sand blasted and an acetone dip used to remove any residual solvent. This conversion has eliminated the risk of environmental degradation through the use of freon; and the process was changed in concert with existing metrics for cycle time and timeliness.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.