Dial-a-Yield Munitions

Today’s asymmetric battleground has created a whole new set of problems for the warfighter. Key challenges include providing (1) scalable or selectable effect munitions, (2) munitions that have controllable lethality radius or low collateral effects, and (3) munitions that meet a strict “insensitive munitions” classification. In this Phase I SBIR project for the USAF, Energetic Materials & Products Inc of Austin, Texas, will develop a technology to address the goals of developing both selectable or tunable effect munitions, and insensitive munitions. The innovation involves the convergence of two technologies. The first is a specially engineered nanothermite material, Binary Metastable Intermolecular Composite (Binary-MIC). Special engineering keeps the fuel and oxidizer compartmentalized and insensitive until it is mixed at the target. The second technology is the use of electrical energy via either a field or spark discharge to control the time rate of release of energy, and thereby, the heat of combustion. In Phase I, EMPI will investigate the effects of explosive power output of laboratory-scale devices, and, via modeling and simulation, identify and develop scalable and economically feasible methods to exploit these effects for existing warhead geometries. Phase II would see the development of a tunable or variable effects prototype.