Protective Paint for Radar Absorbing Material Maintainability

The goal of this SBIR project is to develop and demonstrate feasibility of a resistant, non-reflective carbon nanotube (CNT) composite resin that can be directly applied with minimal training as an RAM protective and absorptive layer. Carbon nanomaterial additives will be utilized to increase the radar absorptive and mechanical properties of the overall polymer matrix. Multiple commercially available acrylic polyurethane products will be impregnated with CNTs and deposited onto a generalized ceramic substrate. This class of resin was chosen because of the constituent polymer’s seawater-resistant, UV-resistant, and mechanical properties. Acrylic elements will serve chemically resistive, adhesive, and UV-resistance while urethane elements will incorporate further seawater resistance as well as tensile strength. Both paint-on and spray-on applications will be explored. Functional groups characteristic to the monomers of each component will encourage hydrogen bonding surface interactions between the RAM substrate and the protective layer to combat the observed “peeling” phenomena of current protective layers. Deposited polymer formulations will be partially characterized to determine a best base resin. Once a prime candidate is chosen and its associated percolation threshold is found, samples of impregnated polymer will be mixed and deposited onto a generalized ceramic substrate serving as a substitute for RAM material. Rigorous testing on these samples will be performed by Keystone Compliance. Samples of ceramic-deposited polymer as well as liquid pre-polymer will serve as deliverables.