Rapidly Disintegrating Composites for Fast Cook-Off Mitigation

Mitigation methods for fast cook-off (FCO) and other insensitive munition (IM) threats are required for Ballistic Missile Defense interceptor and other large missile motors.New venting technologies are needed to meet FCO requirements, particularly with the growing use of composite motor cases.To satisfy this need, Luna has successfully developed a class of prospective base resins, which possess a unique mechanism for thermal release to prevent catastrophic ignition of the missile.This tunable resin system has the capability to release pressure in a cook-off event within specific operational and trigger requirements.Luna has demonstrated that this system will cover a wide range of mitigation solutions, enabling the technology to be tailored to a specific application.These resins under development are comparable in cost to commercially available materials since they are comprised of traditional structural matrix chemistries and are compatible with standard composite manufacturing techniques.In Phase II, Luna will work with MDA and Orbital ATK to further develop the technology for implementation into specific MDA and other DoD platforms.A stepping stone approach will be utilized to demonstrate the technology on progressively larger sized composite motors while developing a full integration plan for the Ground Based Interceptor Orion motor.