Beryllium Alloy Replacement Materials for Missile Optical Structures

Foster-Miller will demonstrate two classes of innovative, low cost and health hazard-free composite materials - metal matrix composites (MMC) and ceramic matrix composites (CMC) towards their utility to effectively substitute beryllium and its alloys inseveral critical military and commercial applications, without compromising systems' performance. We have previously demonstrated affordable and scalable routs to both MMC and CMC materials with excellent performance parameters. During this program, wewill optimize and adopt these innovative materials and their corresponding fabrication processes to produce lightweight electro-optical structure elements.Foster-Miller has teamed up with a major developer of the military electro-optical components, extensively employing beryllium alloys, and a major developer and supplier of advanced ceramics to be used in the proposed program as a reinforcement for bothMMC and CMC candidate materials for beryllium replacement.The proposed manufacturing technology is well suited for advanced optical structures where performance, weight and cost efficiency are extremely important. One goal of DOD/MDA electro-optical systems is to increase the thermal stability of the bencheswhile maintaining a low weight. The space environment service temperatures, high dimensional control, and service time requirements are ideal for use of metal and ceramic matrix composites with SiC reinforcement. (P-030242) High-stiffness and thermal conductivity, low cost and net-shape capabilities make MMCs and CMCs the ideal health hazard-free materials to a number of military and commercial ground and airborne electro-optical systems. These include sensor mirrors,optical bench components, and shades. Additional targeted applications include automotive and rocket engine components and substrates and packages for thermal management.