Novel Hard-Nosed Penetrators

There is an urgent need for the development of innovative concepts of advanced warheads for air-delivered conventional munitions to defeat host of targets, both above and buried under the ground. The diverse need for the modern penetrator provides atremendous challenge for the material science and engineering discipline. Getting to the buried targets with conventional munitions is becoming increasingly difficult as the targets are being reinforced with concrete. The current high-strength steelpenetrators are gradually becoming ineffective in defeating these targets. To make the penetrators effective, there is the need to develop new penetrator concepts that will significantly enhance the penetration performance.One of the criteria for attaining greater penetration is to design a conceptual penetrator with a very high hardness nose structure. This nose structure (which may be around quarter of the total penetrator length) can be followed by an ultra-high strengthand high toughness steel (maraging steel) or even conceivably a much lower cost mild steel structure that will simply provide a high fracture toughness mass that will follow the very high hardness nose structure. The Phase I investigation will reduce topractice this novel penetrator concept. Success in Phase I will result in the development of a novel hard nosed penetrator concept that will have potential applications in both defense and commercial sectors. Some of the large penetrators that are being developed for use against hardenedbunkers will benefit from the use of such a novel hard nose penetrator concept. This will benefit DoD and the Air Force in establishing superiority in any war situation. The other major benefit that will be gained from this Phase I project will be theability to form complex shaped structures (using the process of powder injection molding) from an expensive and very difficult to machine material such as cemented carbides. This ability will be of great use in producing complex near-net shaped parts fromsuch hardmaterials for numerous wear related components that have applications in the oil and gas industry and in material shaping tools. This project will also develop (in Phase II) the concept of a new functionally graded steel structure which can havenumerous applications in the tool and die sector. The success in this proposal also has the potential for use in the area of a totally novel concept of