Novel High Density Structural Reactive Materials

MATSYS proposes to develop novel high density, high strength, and highly reactive materials for the enhancement of munitions lethality. This effort will combine our unique expertise in instrumented-Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) with new approaches in powder blend design to develop a new generation of cost-efficient, high strength and highly reactive materials. The proposed material system will have a blend of three elemental and compound powders. The powder blend will be consolidated to full density to maximize the mechanical properties, and below the reaction temperature to preserve the energy for release upon demand. The existence of three different powders will allow for tailoring of mechanical and reactive properties of the composite by varying the volume fraction of each element. MATSYS high instrumented-HIP will enable rapid characterization of densification of powder mixtures and optimization of mixtures of interest. MATSYS will demonstrate the versatility of the approach by fabricating fully dense, high strength and highly reactive materials that will enhance the munitions lethality by releasing a large amount of exothermal heat and overpressure upon target impact. Upon successful demonstration, this powder-based process can be easily applied to different powders and scaled for cost-effective, high volume production of powders and fully dense composites.