Fiber Reinforced Aluminum Rocket Motor Case

Innovative rocket motor case materials and manufacturing processes are required to drive improvements in performance and price of today's rocket motors. Currently evolving missile designs, for example the Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile(AMRAAM), are moving towards higher pressures, higher and longer duration aeroheat temperatures, increased maneuverability, and have additional emphasis placed on meeting Insensitive Munitions (IM) standards. Higher motor operating pressures and increasedmissile stiffness will require materials and manufacturing processes exhibiting higher specific strength and stiffness than steels can provide on an efficient specific stiffness and specific strength basis. Materials will be required to have accuratepredictive failure modes that are tailored to specific IM stimuli, such as designing a case where its ability to hold pressure degrades faster than Fast Cook Off (FCO) thermal temperatures can reach and potentially detonate/deflagrate motor propellant.Touchstone Research Laboratory proposes to determine the feasibility of producing rocket motor cases out of a unique Fiber Reinforced Aluminum (FRA) material, a true Metal Matrix Composite (MMC). Touchstone's material system consists of a