Multifunctional Titanium-(Titanium-Aluminide) Metallic-Intermetallic Laminate Composites for Tough, Low Cost, and Lightweight Missile Components

High performance metallic structural materials, such as aluminum, titanium, steel, and beryllium, are used in many missile defense interceptor subsystem components to provide high structural and thermal performance for the lightest weight and lowest costdesign approaches. Each metallic material has strengths and weaknesses to meet an interceptor component's key performance design requirements, such as stiffness, strength, toughness, temperature capability, thermal management properties, vibrationdamping, etc. It is difficult to select a single metallic material to provide the optimum solution for combined structural and thermal management applications. Beryllium comes the closest, due to its lightweight, high strength, thermal capabilities andother attributes. However, beryllium presents environmental, cost, and producibility issues for future interceptor production programs. Aluminum provides higher thermal conductivity and a good alternative for thermal management applications, but atreduced specific stiffness. Titanium provides a tough, high strength structural alternative, especially for higher temperature applications, but at a reduced thermal management cost. Steel provides a low cost, high modulus and strength structuralalternative, but with significant weight penalties. Composites, including fiber reinforced metal, polymer, and ceramic matrix, are advanced alternatives, but lower cost manufacturing processes are required. Recent research has demonstrated technologyfor a new class of metallic structural materials called Metal-Intermetallic Laminate (MIL) composites that allows the synthesis of multifunctional composites tailored to optimize structural, thermal, and other properties. A Titanium-(Titanium-Aluminide)MIL (Ti-Al3Ti MIL) composite has the desired properties of toughness, high specific stiffness and strength, thermal management, and vibration-damping properties for multifunctional materials applications for missile defense interceptors. The Ti-Al3Ti MILcomposite is a candidate for replacement of beryllium, titanium, aluminum, and steel components in missile defense interceptor airframe and electronic subsystem structural and thermal management components. A program is proposed to demonstrate theTi-Al3Ti MIL composites concept's multifunctionality and weight payoffs, scale-up of the manufacturing technology to representative missile components, and low cost manufacturing potential for missile defense interceptor applications such as EKV and THAAD. The proposed Ti-Al3Ti MIL composite materials concept will provide a lightweight, low cost, and more producible alternative to current advanced metallics such as beryllium, titanium, aluminum and steel components for missile defense interceptor airframeand electronics support structures applications. The Ti-Al3TI MIL composite concept combines the best attributes of titanium and aluminum in a low cost materials and manufacturing approach, with the added advantage of the resulting aluminide havingsignificantly higher specific stiffness and thermal properties than either Ti or Al alone. Multifunctional materials solutions are expected to meet combined structural, thermal management, vibration damping, and other design requirements. The technologybase will be applicable for other industry and aerospace applications for missiles and electronics packaging.