Explosive Compaction of Powdered Metals,Phase I.

摘要

This is the final project report on a study to determine the feasibility of explosively compacting powdered metals to form missile and other ordnance parts. At the outset of this project, it was believed that with the ability to generate extremely high pressure with explosives, one could achieve close to 100% theoretical density by using explosives to compact metal powders. During the course of the project, densities as high as 97.9% of theoretical were attained with powdered steel compacts. However, considerable precompaction preparation was necessary to achieve this. The most difficult problem encountered was driving off oxides in the steel powder. This was never satisfactorily accomplished even with preheating the powder samples in a vacuum prior to compaction. Sintering in a reducing atmosphere was also tried without success. It became more evident as the project progressed that the cost of achieving acceptable physical properties would be very high and make explosively compacting parts infeasible.