High Energy Density Resin Systems for Additive Manufacturing of Explosive and Propellant Formulations

The Army needs to develop energetic formulations suitable for additive manufacturing. One approach is to tailor energetic prepolymers and plasticizers to enable rapid curing. This would lower manufacturing costs, increase manufacturing throughput as well as increase the range and lethality of the system. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and New Mexico Tech (NMT) successfully executed a Phase I program that developed scalable technologies to enable additive manufacturing of energetic resin systems. PSI and NMT demonstrated energetic resin systems with high energy density components that can be rapidly cured via thermal and/or UV processes. In Phase II, PSI and NMT will scale up the energetic resin system components to the pilot production scale and qualify the materials for insertion into explosive and propellant formulations through various thermochemical, sensitivity, and compatibility testing. PSI will perform iterative development in collaboration with the Army technical leads and demonstrate commercial viability of production at scale via techno-economic analysis. PSI will work with DoD primes and private sector companies to advance the TRL and transition the technology into commercial production. The Phase II design and transition plan will guide Phase III efforts, focusing on qualification of the material in explosive/propellant applications selected by the US Army.