Advanced Materials and Manufacturing

Point of need (PON) food production may sustain units deployed in contested logistics (CL) environments and reduce class I logistics burden. Research initiated by DARPA and the DoD Manufacturing Innovation Institutes has identified novel methods to utilize PON resource processing that can maintain military dominance in a contested or denied logistics environment.

Human patient simulators leverage unreliable mechanical air bladders, anatomically inaccurate synthetic tissues (Hannay et. all, 2022; Lee et. all, 2021; Norfleet et. all, 2015), and often do not accurately show a patient progression or regression during treatment.

Current munitions manufacturing is often limited to monolithic, simple designs due to the difficulty of manufacturing the very hard and strong metals of interest to the military through conventional means. Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to enable the production of complex, multi-material munitions with enhanced lethality.

In order for the Army to advance the development of extended range precision artillery and long-range missiles, while meeting the key need to penetrate adversary defensive capabilities and engage key targets at those extended ranges, the need to develop electromagnetic protection solutions and ways to integrate them onto munitions becomes increasingly critical.

The Army is currently looking for novel solutions of integrating electromagnetic (EM) protection materials onto artillery munitions. The proposed solutions must be capable of surviving typical artillery gun launch loads, should conform to the geometry of artillery projectile, and also be able to perform at elevated skin temperatures caused by aerodynamic heating due to higher velocities commonly required to achieve extended ranges. Ultra-low temperature co-fired ceramic (ULTCC) materials have demonstrated potential as EM materials; however, for artillery these EM materials must be capable of being applied to conformal surfaces and surviving the mechanical shock of gun launch.

This Imaging/Detector to be used in conjunction with a source of high-energy neutrons to achieve a state-of-the-art neutron radiography system.