Reactive Ni–Al-Based Materials: Strength and Combustion Behavior

Stepan Seropyan,Mikhail Alymov,Gulnaz Saikova,Dmitrii Andreev,Ivan Saikov

doi:10.3390/met11060949

Abstract

The effect of PTFE, continuous boron, and tungsten fibers on the combustion behavior and strength of reactive Ni–Al compacts was examined in this study. The introduction of continuous fibers into Ni–Al compacts according to the developed scheme was found to increase the flexural strength from 12 to 120 MPa. Heat treatment (HT), leading to chemical interaction of the starting components, increases the strength of compacts at temperatures not exceeding 550 °C. The combination of reinforcement and HT significantly increases the strength without reducing reactivity. Experimental results showed that strength and combustion rate increase with the reduction in PTFE to 1 wt % in Ni–Al compacts. A favorable effect of the addition of PTFE from 5 to 10 wt % on the reduction of the threshold for the shock-wave initiation of reactions in Ni–Al was established. The obtained results can be used to produce reactive materials with high mechanical and energy characteristics.

Highlights

Reactive Ni–Al-Based Materials: Energetic materials are substances or mixtures in which, under the action of external forces, self-sustaining chemical reactions occur with the release of a large amount of energy
A promising group of energetic materials are reactive structural materials (RSMs), consisting of two or more solids, usually nonexplosive metallic or nonmetallic powders, in which an exothermic reaction can occur after high-velocity impact and penetration into a target
This paper presents studies of the strength, ignition, combustion, and shock-wave initiation of metal and metal-polymer powder mixtures based on Ni–Al and Ni–Al–PTFE

Summary

Introduction

Reactive Ni–Al-Based Materials: Energetic materials are substances or mixtures in which, under the action of external forces, self-sustaining chemical reactions occur with the release of a large amount of energy. A promising group of energetic materials are reactive structural materials (RSMs), consisting of two or more solids, usually nonexplosive metallic or nonmetallic powders, in which an exothermic reaction can occur after high-velocity impact and penetration into a target. Thermite, intermetallic, metal-fluoropolymer systems and metastable intermixed composites are used as RSMs [1,2]. These materials can be used in the military field as kinetic penetrators, cumulative highly reactive fragments, shaped charge liners [3], reactive projectiles, and reactive (active) armor and munition bodies [1,2,4]. High-pressure processing requires large-sized equipment and includes multi-stage plastic deformation of two materials with different plasticity, which can eventually lead to material cracking and partial chemical interaction between starting components

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