SBIR-STTR Award

This proposal addresses some of the most challenging materials issues with respect to Hot Structures, very high temperature, up to 4000 degrees F, applications. The very successful, record breaking, NASA led X-43A hypersonic flight proved the ability to use state of the art (SOTA) material/coating system for short duration, single mission, and very high temperature applications. The issues associated with the leading edges are quite different from the Hot Structures issues where transverse properties are very critical and the longer duration time with much wider temperature distribution can be expected. Also the shear component size makes the application of CVD based coatings impractical. Allcomp proposes an extremely innovative solution to this problem by using functionally graded (FGM) PIP coatings to alleviate interfacial shear stresses and greatly reduce transverse thermal cracking, which historically have plagued ceramic coatings applied to very low thermal expansion coefficient 2-D and 2.5 D C-C composite substrates. The success of this Phase I will totally open new avenues in the area of high temperature materials. That, in turn, will enable NASA designers to implement hot structure solution in lieu of parasitic passive insulation system, resulting in significant weight reduction in future NASA Space Exploration vehicles, as well as a plethora of other applications.

NASA future missions place stringent requirements on high temperature and light-weight materials.This proposal addresses some of the most challenging materials issues with respect to Hot Structures, very high temperature, up to 4500 degrees F, applications.The very successful NASA led X-43A hypersonic flight proved the ability to use state of the art (SOTA) 2D C-C with oxidation coating system. However, current material systems can only offer limited temperature capability (<3000 °F) and mostly for single use application.  In Phase I, two innovative technologies, undercoat and FGM multi-layer coats, were developed and screened. They were further integrated into two SOTA C-C composites. Oxidation protected C-C samples were torch tested at 3500 F/ 30 minutes, at 4200 F/ 2 minutes up to 10 cycles, and at 3000 F/cool/ 4000 F cycles showing very promising results.  The combined effects of the undercoat and FGM spray coats provide repeatable performance by creating a glass forming, conforming and adherent external coating to protect the C-C from being oxidized.The overall objective of the proposed P-II is to further develop and optimize a robust, tailorable, and affordable oxidation protection system for C-C TPS and C-C hot structure by integrating our undercoat and FGM multi-layer spray coat technologies into at least two grades C-C composites (T300 and P30 2D C-C) meeting higher temperature performance up to 4500 F and multi-use applications. Work plan includes 12 tasks over 24 month grouped into 5 categories.Once further optimized and validated under Phase II, these technologies can easily be integrated into SOTA C-C using current manufacturing facilities. The resulting oxidation protected C-C could be tailorable, affordable, and easily scaled up for large components or structure required in future NASA, DoD and commercial space applications.