QUESTEK INNOVATIONS LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A16-016
QUESTEK INNOVATIONS LLC — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.
- Amount
- $996,737
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Army
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- Topic
- A16-016
- Solicitation
- 16.1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- IL
- Period
- 2017-06-30 → 2020-06-30
Description
Recent research by the Army has indicated that silver-based alloys will serve as a superior replacement material for tantalum liners in explosively formed projectiles (EFPs). EFPs must have high ductility while experiencing very high strain rates (104-107 s-1) in order to form coherent jets. Under the Phase I SBIR program, QuesTek Innovations LLC, a global leader in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME), has designed a high-strength Ag-based alloy that is still highly ductile. This precipitation strengthened Ag-based alloy allows for replacement of tantalum for EFPs, providing for superior performance. In this Phase II SBIR program, QuesTek will optimize this novel, precipitation-strengthened alloy and examine the influence of refined grain structures such as ultra-fine grained (UFG) and nanocrystalline (NC) grain size regimes as this affects the performance as EFP liner materials. Scale-up feasibility and formability will be determined for this alloy and will be assessed as benchmark EFP performance tests will evaluate this novel alloy in comparison to that of pure Ag.