DESIGNER COMPOSITE REACTIVE MATERIALS

Structural Reactive Materials (SRM) have unique properties and through a stepwise high energy milling technique and subsequent powder consolidation, energetic solids can be synthesized and shaped for use in the propellants, ordnance and pyrotechnics communities where the ignition properties and thermodynamics are known and can be tightly controlled. High energy milling gives a fully dense reactive powder with a narrow particle size distribution which can produce structurally biased materials by design through control of the milling parameters and process control agents. It is anticipated that to achieve the required density for practical munitions the reactive materials must be metals which tend to have unreactive oxide layers. High energy milling produces materials that are highly reactive where fresh surfaces of the composite are exposed through shearing and deforming in the milling process, creating nanoscale reactive domains which ensure a high reactivity of the composite material even with oxides present. These structurally reactive materials can then be consolidated into shapes where they are structurally sound, highly energetic and reactive, with ignition properties that are predictive and controlled. Metals based reactive materials will have the appropriate density and reaction temperature for effect IED and chemical/biological agent defeat.