Low Cost Synthesis of Nanocrystalline Ceramic Powders for Armor Application

Ceramic armor is increasingly gaining acceptance as the armor material of choise for defense applications. One way to increase the ballistic performance of ceramic armors is to enhance their fracture resistance br decreasing their gain size (i.e. decreased flaw size) within the microstructure. Nanocrystalline powders, by virtue of their nanometer scale partical size, offer excellent potential to enhance the ballistic performance of ceramic armors. Simultaneously, the use of such powders can also result in lower hot-pressing temperatures, aided by the tremendous driving force for densification; lower densification temperatures will be conducive to obtaining smaller grain sizes within the densified microstructure. Additionally, such powders also offer excellent potential of being pressureless-sintered into net-shape bodies. This Phase I program will demonstrate feasibility of synthesizing nanocrystalline powders of SiC, B4C and TiB2 at a low cost, their densification at lower processing temperatures (compared to commercila ceramic powders) without significant grain growth, and the resultant enhancement in fracture resistance under quasistatic loading.