A Process to Produce High-Purity Encapsulated Particulates in Large Quantities

In Phase I of this project, FTG researchers showed that complete and uniform coatings of metal-coated particulates provide a mechanism for improving particle distribution, enhancing mechanical properties of fabricated components, and significantly improving the performance of reactive materials. This permits the creation of fully dense and high-quality MMCs for the production of bulk materials/coatings/components with specific engineered properties. These can significantly increase the lethality of various weapons systems, such as bullets, rockets, shape charges and mortars. We have achieved excellent results in creating new and highly reactive intermetallic and thermic materials composed of mixtures of finely divided particles of the reaction partners. Metallic reaction partners of small metal-coated particles maximize effective surface area and are intimately coated for good contact. These uniform coatings provide for even distribution through the bulk reactive material, enabling fast and complete reactions. Ni-Al and Cu-W composites exhibit high-bond strengths, and uniform homogeneity is achieved without clustering. Resulting components show dramatically improved structural strengths, and have 100% consolidation equal to theoretical properties with little to no apparent porosity or inherent material defects. To effectively compete against nanoparticles, the focus of Phase II will be to introduce nanomaterials by coating nanostructured materials made up of nanograins.