Low Cost Nanostructured Tantalum for Armor Piercing Ammunition/Warheads

Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) are an important component of today's military. They are capable of penetrating many inches (even feet) of armor. Needless to say, high performance is of critical concern and continued improvement requires advanced materials that can perform under severe conditions. For example, EFP liners undergo extreme plastic deformation when fired, involving strains up to 300% at strain rates on the order of 10^4/s. Budget and other practical concerns make finding a solution difficult, but a recently identified class of materials, called nanostructured materials, holds great promise. However, to-date, exploitation of nanomaterials has been hindered by a lack of suitable production technologies and high costs. This SBIR program will lead to a new generation of low-cost, tantalum, and other materials, through a radically new, yet simple, approach that is greatly superior to competing technologies. High-velocity deformation (HVD) using industrial machining equipment has been shown to produce micron-sized particles composed entirely of nanocrystalline structures. As such, these materials can be processed with commercially available consolidation equipment, processes, and handling procedures, and thereby avoid the expensive equipment and procedures required for nano-sized particles. Phase I will demonstrate the efficacy of the approach through production and testing of nanocrystalline tantalum.