US Government As Represented by the Secretary of the Army

David Fair

Leon Manole

Dilhan M Kalyon

Sam M Moy

Mark J Mezger

Eileen Heider

Methods of making cross sectional, functionally-graded munitions propellants exhibiting various distributions of particle concentrations and burn rate, including having a fast burning core and slower burning outer layer(s). Unlike prior art methods of preparing such munitions, propellants prepared according to our inventive method(s) may be performed substantially as a single extrusion step or as a few processing steps, without requiring the time, expense and/or difficulties that characterized familiar, laminating methods and methods which use multiple extruders. Our inventive method advantageously employs a demixing phenomenon that, prior to our inventive application and teaching, has been considered quite undesirable in the preparation of propellants where uniformity and well-mixedness have been propellant attributes widely sought after.

Cross-sectional functionally graded propellants and method of manufacture

A multi-component three dimensional energetic device and the method of maacturing it. The method includes the steps of forming a quantity of an energetic material into a plurality of sheets having relatively no appreciable thickness, and then cutting at least one required shape from the surface of a portion of each of the plurality of sheets to define an opening for at least one inlay of a different material. An inlay of the different material is placed in the openings to form a plurality of stackable shapes that are then bonded together to form the multi-component three dimensional energetic device. The preferred embodiment includes forming the inlay from an energetic material that is different from the sheet energetic material. Optionally a bonding agent may be admixed with at least one of the materials to facilitate bonding to form the device. The bonding agent may or may not be an energetic material, as desired. The required shape are preferably cut along three axes of cutting to approximate non axial shapes without substantial step-like deviation from the desired shape.

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Parsippany, NJ, United States of America

David Fair