Advanced Development for Defense Science and Technology

To meet DoD combat requirements emerging in the next 10 to 15 years, “new multifunctional fiber materials and associated composite systems and processing techniques must be developed, and this development must start now.” In making their projections for this technology, DoD expects that “one must separate incremental gains made using current technology from major leaps arising from new non-PAN precursors and/or completely new fiber technologies.” To address this need, TRI/Austin has recently conceived of a novel material, which it believes is a strong candidate to produce the revolutionary engineering fiber breakthrough needed to replace Kevlar, Twaron, M5 and graphite fibers. We believe that our fiber will have higher modulus, strength, toughness and environmental resistance at a significantly reduced cost compared to these legacy materials. TRI proposes to investigate the chemical and physical properties of our novel material with the aim to determine the engineering parameters necessary to manufacture validation quantities of fiber in Phase II.