Multifunctional Metal Rubber™ Composite Structural Materials

This SBIR program would develop multifunctional structural composite materials based on NanoSonic’s Metal Rubber™. The Metal Rubber™ composites would offer mechanical stiffness-to-weight comparable with conventional cross-ply laminate face sheet and structural composite materials, but also incorporate high electrical conductivity, broadband RF/EMI shielding, and uniform thermal conductivity typically not available in polymer matrix composite systems. Metal Rubber™ is a self-assembled nanocomposite material that combines conducting nanoclusters and advanced polymers into free-standing sheets. These materials would be combined as plies with high performance reinforcement fibers to create cross-ply laminate composites during Phase I. Prior work has demonstrated low mass density (<1g/cc), highly electrically conductive (10-6 ohm&#8729;cm), and useful RF and microwave shielding properties for NanoSonic’s Metal Rubber™ ply materials. During Phase I, NanoSonic would modify the chemistry of its current Metal Rubber™ materials to allow their consolidation into composite structural materials using normal processing routes. Multiple Metal Rubber™ composite structural test articles would be delivered and evaluated to determine RF/EMI, electrical conductivity, thermal uniformity, useable temperature range, UV degradation and outgassing properties. NanoSonic would work with a large aerospace prime contractor involved in multiple MDA platforms and systems to design multifunctional requirements into Metal Rubber™ composite performance, and evaluate properties of test articles.