Lightweight, Beryllium Free Nanostructured Composites

"Beryllium has been for used for generations in the aerospace structures and other applications due to its lightweight, high stiffness, low thermal expansion and high thermal conductivity. Despite its usefulness, beryllium is not an ideal material as it isexpensive, too brittle to work and poses a severe health hazard due to its toxic behavior resulting in chronic beryllium disease. The present effort will develop a nanostructured, non-toxic lightweight beryllium-free alloy, which has similar materialproperties as that of beryllium. Highly stiff hypereutectic aluminum silicon alloys will be used as the matrix material which will be reinforced with nano-size alumina particles. The reinforcement will use nano-size particles to increase the mechanicalstrength and stiffness. In the present work, the low cost and energy efficient methods of near net shape forming using will be employed to fabricate this novel lightweight and high stiffness composite material into useful shapes. The results of the Phase I effort will clearly demonstrate the ability to fabricate nanostructured beryllium free lightweight composite material. Development of these innovative nanostructured materials will allow the production of robust lightweightcomponents with high strength and stiffness. Such unique properties will reduce the weight and cost of boost and tactical missile system. Potential clients for these lightweight components are users such as DOD, NASA