Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing for Improved Tungsten Fragmentation Warheads

Current production methods for tungsten fragmentation warheads are expensive and require significant labor to produce. Needed is a method that can maintain or improve upon the quality of the tungsten components while reducing the amount of time and labor to create the fragmentation warheads. Cold spray has the potential to answer both of these issues. Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) technology is capable of depositing layers of metal onto a surface without the need of additional processing or welding. In contrast to fusion based additive manufacturing processes which depend on thermal energy, CSAM is a solid state process and uses kinetic energy to bond materials together. CSAM also has an edge over Metal Injection Molding as it requires less steps during the process and requires no post process sintering. By the conclusion of Phase I, tungsten blended with a binder metal or a tungsten heavy alloy capable of use in a fragmentation warhead will have been successfully deposited using CSAM. This deposit will have been appraised for basic material and fragmentation properties. Additionally, CSAM will be used to improve fragmentation consistency.