Microscale Ordnance Technologies for Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs)

The proposed research describes two novel concepts and an experimental study to demonstrate the feasibility of developing extremely reduced scale (1cm3 to 10 cm3) energetic ordnance packages. The damage mechanisms will be assessed against electronic hardware, specifically a hardened laptop computer and against ballistic gel, specifically Permagel contained in a soft shell. The first concept involves a high-velocity, high-temperature metal-vapor jet or torch, designed to focus its energy into a concentrated region or distribute the energy into a prescribed pattern depending upon the target characteristics. The energetic materials will be selected from groups that have low activation energies, very high volumetric energy densities and very high adiabatic flame temperatures. A suitable class of materials would be thermites, nanothermites or hybrid thermites, which would be designed to produce sustained combustion for subsequent “fire start” and produce corrosive combustion products. The second concept is similar but would address targets that are not in close contact with the microscale ordnance device. The basic idea is a small, self propelled “pyrophoric” missile with a range on the order of a few meters and a volume on the order of 10 cm3. BENEFIT: The microscale ordnance technology has direct applications to developing more efficient energetic tools and devices for down-hole operations in the oil exploration and production industry. EMPI is uniquely positioned to advance this commercialization because of its relationship with an energy services company for the oil industry.