MateriAlZ Seminar: Monique McClain
Friday, February 17th, 2023, 11:00 a.m. MST
Monique McClain
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University
"Additive Manufacturing of Composite Energetic Materials"
Zoom link | Passcode 10810
MateriAlZ Seminar website | YouTube | Twitter
Abstract
Composite energetic materials present fundamental research challenges to additive manufacturing. They are mixtures of energetic particles (i.e. ammonium perchlorate, octogen, etc.) bound together by a small percentage of binder (often a crosslinked polymer). Depending on the application, the particle content can range from 80 to 95 wt.% (>70 vol.%) through the use of multi-modal particle packing. In general, a higher particle content results in better combustion performance (e.g. burning rate, detonation velocity, etc.), but also increases the mixture viscosity. In addition, binders (e.g. hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene) that require thermal crosslinking provide desirable mechanical properties but do not contain the best processing parameters for additive manufacturing. This talk discusses some recent advances in additively manufacturing viscous composite energetic materials. For example, a new 3D printing approach (Vibrating Assisted Printing) has been used to deposit ammonium perchlorate composite propellants with volume loadings over 70%. This approach has also been used to deposit multiple propellant formulations into layered propellant strands at fine scales (~1 mm layers). Another problem that has been addressed is how to characterize potential photopolymer binders with energetic particles (including opaque additives) to avoid the slumping problem commonly seen with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene. Although energetic materials are a unique class of composite mixtures, the research lessons learned from additively manufactured energetic materials can be applied to other particulate/binder composite mixtures, such as ceramics, metals, and potentially short fiber mixtures.
Bio
Dr. Monique McClain is an assistant professor at Purdue University in the School of Mechanical Engineering with a courtesy appointment in the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics. Her main research interests are to understand the effect of additive manufacturing on the performance of energetic materials. Such interests include multi-material printing, quality control, and assessing combustion and mechanical properties. She was a recent recipient of the AFOSR Young Investigator Program FY23 award. Prior to her current position, she was a research scientist working with Dr. Kris Villez at Oak Ridge National Laboratories to develop and apply defect detection techniques to Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) data. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics at Purdue University in 2020 and she received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego in 2016.