Needleless Topical Administration of Dengue DNA Vaccine

Rapid fire small arms gun performance is limited by wear and erosion in the chromiumplated steel gun barrels which are also heavy for infantry use. Ceramic lined steelgun barrels have demonstrated potential to eliminate the wear and erosion but havefailure from cracking for lack of toughness, uniform triaxial restraint and offernegligible weight savings. Recent developments in ceramic matrix composites (CMCs)have the potential to overcome the toughness and cracking limitations of monolithicceramics. CMC liners coupled with outer shells of metal matrix composites (MMCs)have the potential to eliminate wear and erosion, and achieve up to 50% weightsavings over chromium plated steel barrels. This program will demonstrate thefabrication of very high thermal conductivity and toughness CMCs that arefunctionally graded into MMCs to produce a small arms rapid fire barrel whicheliminates wear and erosion, and provides 50% weight savings. Modeling andsimulation will be conducted concurrent with CMC composition and fabricationprocessing demonstration, and screen tested using vented bomb, barrel burst testand thermal conductivity. Selected processing will be utilized to fabricate selectCMC composition(s) into barrels including attachments, which will be live firetested.Ceramic composite lined metal composite tubes not only have a substantial market forall gun barrel applications in DoD, law enforcement and recreational, but suchcomposites have a plethora of applications in engines, brakes and chemicalprocessing industries.