<br/>Reactive materials are used heavily in defense applications for localized energy generation. One drawback to these materials in their current form is that compositional control is not easily attainable. This limits shelf life and performance in sensitive applications. Advances in additive manufacturing technologies may help to bridge this technological gap. One approach to join these research areas is to exploit a reactive binder, which eases rheological limitations by reducing solid loading. Aluminum nanopowders (fuel) were melt blended with a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) binder to produce reactive filaments. However, due to melt flow and surface energy limitations, these materials are not a reasonable candidate for transition to AM fabrication. To resolve these limitations, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) was added to the binder to improve processability by increasing binder surface energy and melt flow rate. Although processability is improved with PMMA addition, the use of an inert binder (e.g., PMMA) will impact particle kinetics during processing and polymer decomposition once these materials undergo thermal ignition. This talk details the impact of PMMA on the processability and reaction kinetics of composites produced by fused deposition modeling.

Inert binder effects on interface and reaction kinetics of 3D printed reactive composites

256th National Meeting (2018)

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