Investigations of the Energy Release Mechanisms of Aluminum-Nickel Reactive Material System

摘要

Reactive materials (RM) are a wide class of energetic materials with unique characteristics that can enable highly lethal munitions along with other applications. Most of the existing information on the behavior of these materials is phenomenological in nature with little evidence as to the initiation and reaction mechanisms at play, making full exploitation of the potential lethality gains difficult. To remedy this situation, a more fundamental understanding of the initiation and reaction processes was pursued by employing combined experimental and theoretical studies. The Ni-Al RM system was chosen as the base for which the morphology, chemistry, and initiation condition effects can be studied. Various metals were mixed or alloyed with the aluminum portion of the RM matrix and were launched by a powder gun into an instrumented chamber to evaluate temperature and pressure.