composites

michasco1

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Apr 26, 2024
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I'm a PhD engineer (+ MD) and am thinking about starting a ballistics group. Not to much information given right now but looking at doing a couple of things

1. cubic Zirc ceramic composite projectiles (milled) - production of composite can be done on low scale
2. PEEK based cartridges (can utilize another engineering polymer)

Would love to talk to someone. Have been utilizing ABAQUS (FEA software) to determine modifiable porosity an orthogonal material orientation.

background ( I have a completed DOD composite manufacturing paper - just published) can give upon request, not ballistic oriented but a stress shielding application.
 
Just for discussion, what would a near diamond hard projectile do to a barrel? How many rounds would you say a standard steel rifle barrel be able to launch? Would the rifling be able to engrave this hard projectile? What about the gasses that produce the thrust...how would such a hard projectile seal against leakage? Or would this projectile have a sort of diamond core? And for what purpose...defeating armor?
 
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Uh, I don't get it.


It feels like you googled buzz words and dropped them in here to prove how smart you are.


Very hard projectiles means you'll need to sabot them to have any barrel life and pressure sealing.


I feel like you're an enthusiastic enginerd that wants to reinvent the wheel.
Just don't forget that the wheel only works because it's round...
 
just for discussion, what would a near diamond hard projectile do to a barrel? - the actual projectile would be like a sabot or impregnated into a softer compound like copper.


How many rounds would you say a standard steel rifle barrel be able to launch? - great question with a composite depending on the modulus and harness none to a lot. it could fracture or be stable if not in contact with rifling. if in contact with rifling it would have to be able to withstand compression, which "some"/most composites cant. (think a broken arm casted in a mix of plaster and polymer). if something else is in contact with the rifling than indefinite depending on accepting material. soooo tangent vs secant ogive would make a difference. the flat part of the bullet should not touch the barrel. or maybee?/?? if you could tune compression and modulus with the proximal part of the projectile that might be an option. prox to distal being the metplat being distal


Would the rifling be able to engrave this hard projectile? based on answer above not quite sure. traditional rifling contingent upon weight and diameter and desired speed, if projectile is not actually contacting barrel. Ifyou could use a porous composite then yes.


What about the gasses that produce the thrust...how would such a hard projectile seal against leakage? - that is another great question, not to be obnoxious but these are all engineering design questions and this one is another great one. so one answer m855a1. if you can utilize a softer bonded material (either by mechanical or chemical bonding ) in a concentric manner than you can answer this because the softer deformable material can "block" the gasses and be used as the hydraulic pressure input. again another answer would be a sabot that utilizes the same principles. a new age answer would be to model the stress in the barrel (utilizing a similar composite) to transfer all the kinetic energy.


Or would this projectile have a sort of diamond core? And for what purpose...defeating armor? another fantistic q. soooooooo two answers brittle and hard would break ceramic body armor. break being a key word. impact with a similar toughness and compression strength. UHMPE would be essentially fucked. It would be the absolute opposite of barrier blind unfortunately. but can gain value in its utility against BA. for civi market it would not penetrate walls al day.....
 
Uh, I don't get it.


It feels like you googled buzz words and dropped them in here to prove how smart you are.


Very hard projectiles means you'll need to sabot them to have any barrel life and pressure sealing.


I feel like you're an enthusiastic enginerd that wants to reinvent the wheel.
Just don't forget that the wheel only works because it's round...



i want to create a ballistics manufac company with a shared passion. if not i can fuck off back to the medical world. my knowledge has been taken from google scholar (all 7 of my publications are there too). so take that with what you will. spanning from microfluidics to DOD composite deposition to pulm medicine to plastics surg.
 
@michasco1 - It's not necessary to start duplicate threads in different areas on the exact same subject/topic:


@Rob01 , @MarinePMI , @padom - fyi.
 
just for discussion, what would a near diamond hard projectile do to a barrel? - the actual projectile would be like a sabot or impregnated into a softer compound like copper.


How many rounds would you say a standard steel rifle barrel be able to launch? - great question with a composite depending on the modulus and harness none to a lot. it could fracture or be stable if not in contact with rifling. if in contact with rifling it would have to be able to withstand compression, which "some"/most composites cant. (think a broken arm casted in a mix of plaster and polymer). if something else is in contact with the rifling than indefinite depending on accepting material. soooo tangent vs secant ogive would make a difference. the flat part of the bullet should not touch the barrel. or maybee?/?? if you could tune compression and modulus with the proximal part of the projectile that might be an option. prox to distal being the metplat being distal


Would the rifling be able to engrave this hard projectile? based on answer above not quite sure. traditional rifling contingent upon weight and diameter and desired speed, if projectile is not actually contacting barrel. Ifyou could use a porous composite then yes.


What about the gasses that produce the thrust...how would such a hard projectile seal against leakage? - that is another great question, not to be obnoxious but these are all engineering design questions and this one is another great one. so one answer m855a1. if you can utilize a softer bonded material (either by mechanical or chemical bonding ) in a concentric manner than you can answer this because the softer deformable material can "block" the gasses and be used as the hydraulic pressure input. again another answer would be a sabot that utilizes the same principles. a new age answer would be to model the stress in the barrel (utilizing a similar composite) to transfer all the kinetic energy.


Or would this projectile have a sort of diamond core? And for what purpose...defeating armor? another fantistic q. soooooooo two answers brittle and hard would break ceramic body armor. break being a key word. impact with a similar toughness and compression strength. UHMPE would be essentially fucked. It would be the absolute opposite of barrier blind unfortunately. but can gain value in its utility against BA. for civi market it would not penetrate walls al day.....
If the projectile does not touch the barrel...
Using todays technology, the rifling imparts spin to the projectile which then provides stability in the form of centripetal motion. If your projectile does not touch the barrel, how will you stabilize it in flight?

Using a modern rifle, you are going to want that projectile to be engraved by the barrel and so you are going to need to design the projectile so that the zirc is not on the steel.

That spin motion can create another problem in that it can destroy the projectile. This is especially true with jacketed bullets and occurs around 300,000 rpm. If you have a zirc core and some (EDIT: I said "polymer" when I should have been using the word composite. Composite does not necessarily mean a polymer) outer, the bond will need to withstand the centripetal forces.

Weight? I recall the testing of the rail guns on Navy ships using an extremely lightweight plastic pellet at extreme or even hyper-velocity. They had trouble with accuracy, amongst many other problems, apparently insurmountable using current technology. Using a polymer composite, assuming it weighs less than lead or bismuth or steel, you have to start making a real long projectile in order to have the weight (mass?) for stable flight. That length then becomes an issue by being able to be fed from from a magazine, the free bore in the barrel, etc.

Porous, to me, is counterintuitive to creating an object that behaves in free flight.

I don't know, man, maybe use zirc instead of the steel pin as is used in the SS109 ammo. How would that be beneficial? I don't know if there is enough advantage gained to make the manufacturing switch.

I still have a shit load of the 30 cal bullets that hold a 22 cal projectile. I also have some vintage Remington factory ammo, Accelerators, for 30-06. The sabot concept is cool but they are shit for accuracy beyond maybe 125 yards.
 
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I can't imagine the temperature needed to "cure" these, I wonder if what the melting point was for those plastic tips that kept "melting", it would surely have to exceed that. I know composites in my line of work do not like being heated beyond their original cure temperature without becoming pliable.

You continue on, I am watching curiously from the bleachers.
 
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i want to create a ballistics manufac company with a shared passion. if not i can fuck off back to the medical world. my knowledge has been taken from google scholar (all 7 of my publications are there too). so take that with what you will. spanning from microfluidics to DOD composite deposition to pulm medicine to plastics surg

Unless English is your second language, I can't see you getting anywhere.

Mostly because you can't clearly get your ideas out.

It reads like gibberish, half formed thoughts.
 
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the only real application for ceramic composites in projectiles is armor penetration, and with the density of composites, you are going to run afoul of the second definition of 'armor piercing' in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(B)(ii): "a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile."

unless you manufacture exclusively for large bore calibers that are not rated as "handgun" cartridges, you've already got a very limited subset of customers, and then you have to prove it's better than what tungsten alloys already do.

Ultem and PEEK have been used as sabot materials in the past, but the other problem you'll run into is that anything with a suppressor or muzzle brake cannot use these sabot cartridges, as the muzzle device prematurely catches the sabot petals.

so yes, you could make a discarding-sabot composite AP load that is basically a dart with a polymer sabot, it would work maybe decently well. General Dynamics would come and eat your lunch based on patents gained during the SLAP ammunition program, and your customer base would be extraordinarily tiny, unless you choose to poke the dragon by selling this stuff to the consumer market by end-running the GCA, and even then people would need dedicated rifles for the ammunition because of the no muzzle device requirement.
 
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the only real application for ceramic composites in projectiles is armor penetration, and with the density of composites, you are going to run afoul of the second definition of 'armor piercing' in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(B)(ii): "a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile."

unless you manufacture exclusively for large bore calibers that are not rated as "handgun" cartridges, you've already got a very limited subset of customers, and then you have to prove it's better than what tungsten alloys already do.

Ultem and PEEK have been used as sabot materials in the past, but the other problem you'll run into is that anything with a suppressor or muzzle brake cannot use these sabot cartridges, as the muzzle device prematurely catches the sabot petals.

so yes, you could make a discarding-sabot composite AP load that is basically a dart with a polymer sabot, it would work maybe decently well. General Dynamics would come and eat your lunch based on patents gained during the SLAP ammunition program, and your customer base would be extraordinarily tiny, unless you choose to poke the dragon by selling this stuff to the consumer market by end-running the GCA, and even then people would need dedicated rifles for the ammunition because of the no muzzle device requirement.

Paragraph1: is this the same rule of trad AP ammo. ie 30-06 legal to buy and say 338 LM to 50 BMG is legal to buy since it has never been chambered in a mass produced pistol.

paragraph 2: The big utility here would be modifying the porosity and compression resistance. It is easy to engineer a non AP round using a modifiable composite ( hundreds of published ways) to turn a 5.56 into a better home defense round. crazy fragmentation and no penetration past a stud in an apartment. this would be great for gun owners if it took off because the argument for 2A Ar ownership for home defense would be more validated ( vs m855 or other steel core penetrators that would be fucked for home defense). Think porosity could be non-orthogonal with various moduli materials that lead to shearing and fracturing.

For mil: highly brittle and high compression resistance ceramics like zirc (utilized in the dental industry and easily milled - worked on one of these projects) could destroy UHMWPE. It would also shatter another composite ceramic if the modulus was tuned. It would be the absolute opposite of barrier blind though.

Paragraph 3: yeah, I don't know. I will have to see on this. I have a shit ton of zirc composites and am in academia. I mightttt manufacture some polymers with different moduli and see if I can first tune them in a 20 gauge (Sabot) and go from there.

Paragraph 4: yes and yes and idk. I am small an no one. That would not be an IP violation if I am using a engineering composite that was new with a different Mechanism of action (MOA). The MOA would be the basis of the infringement lawsuit. But you are right I could still get in trouble becuase burden of proof would be on me to an extent.
 
Also I want to thank everyone for responding. This is a hair brained idea. Alot of ideas start this way including a tree stand patent that I got off the ground 8 years ago. I also have another for Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) flow through suppressors. Anyways doesn't matter. I just am thankful for the engagement. There is always someone regardless of background that has insight and knowledge that I dont have.
 
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I can't imagine the temperature needed to "cure" these, I wonder if what the melting point was for those plastic tips that kept "melting", it would surely have to exceed that. I know composites in my line of work do not like being heated beyond their original cure temperature without becoming pliable.

You continue on, I am watching curiously from the bleachers.
This can get wild in regard to composites. 4000F to 200 F for composite melting point. They can be engineered to hit extremes pushing these maxima and minima to a significant amount, I would say the maxima could be pushed upwards the most.
 
If the projectile does not touch the barrel...
Using todays technology, the rifling imparts spin to the projectile which then provides stability in the form of centripetal motion. If your projectile does not touch the barrel, how will you stabilize it in flight?

Using a modern rifle, you are going to want that projectile to be engraved by the barrel and so you are going to need to design the projectile so that the zirc is not on the steel.

That spin motion can create another problem in that it can destroy the projectile. This is especially true with jacketed bullets and occurs around 300,000 rpm. If you have a zirc core and some (EDIT: I said "polymer" when I should have been using the word composite. Composite does not necessarily mean a polymer) outer, the bond will need to withstand the centripetal forces.

Weight? I recall the testing of the rail guns on Navy ships using an extremely lightweight plastic pellet at extreme or even hyper-velocity. They had trouble with accuracy, amongst many other problems, apparently insurmountable using current technology. Using a polymer composite, assuming it weighs less than lead or bismuth or steel, you have to start making a real long projectile in order to have the weight (mass?) for stable flight. That length then becomes an issue by being able to be fed from from a magazine, the free bore in the barrel, etc.

Porous, to me, is counterintuitive to creating an object that behaves in free flight.

I don't know, man, maybe use zirc instead of the steel pin as is used in the SS109 ammo. How would that be beneficial? I don't know if there is enough advantage gained to make the manufacturing switch.

I still have a shit load of the 30 cal bullets that hold a 22 cal projectile. I also have some vintage Remington factory ammo, Accelerators, for 30-06. The sabot concept is cool but they are shit for accuracy beyond maybe 125 yards.

Paragraph 1. I would assume sabot or a new age jacket that is self collapsing in a circumferential manner (same porosity) or same rheologic properties (not of interior bullet). if gas could compress the ceramic then one could tune the rheologic component of the jacket. Think about a strain hardening / non Newtonian compound. Alot would have to be engineered here. jacket and would be different then the core.

Paragraph 2. this could be done by this half brained theoretical approach made in P1(me). Zirc or similar moduli should NOT TOUCH BARRELL.

Paragraph 3. I am guessing some chemical based bonding. like a siloxane or something to tune surface energy. Not sure again. FEA software would not work. I would have to try some stupid ideas and find a trend and then go from there.

paragrah 4. I can get away with alot more out of a short range rifle bullet like 5.56 then something that is supposed to travel at 4K m/s. Fuck this is a book in-itself that i cant write. ANYTHING regardless of mass is going to ignite its surrounding due to friction. I feel like this would not be an issue with a normal GP based projectile. There would need to be dimensional tuning, hopfully it could be done to still stay within gas gun confines. It would be a great 2A arguement for the validity of AR as a home defense weapon ( in one of my earlier responses).

I can adress more later. Off to round on patients
 
I had not considered a non-Newtonian approach. Cornstarch bullets!! hahaha I'll have to think about this a bit. I mean, the instant shock of ignition and all, you might be on to something. Maybe increasingly smaller bore to create more shear type forces on the surface of the projectile. @Makinchips208 that would be an interesting machine to build, a tapered bore rifle barrel boring machine, make it even more complicated, gain twist that sucker.

I have a few thoughts.
 
2 approaches.

1. Like you mentioned. that's a cool idea that i didn't think of.
2. use compressive gasses to strain harden the material. change the confirmation of porosity to collapse it to allow a barrier between shank and ogive. instantaneous. but similar to what you mentioned, pressure waveform forming a seal on the jacket. This is now a FEA modeling approach. how to align porosity to collapse.

I can supply the composites if we can get this rolling. Everything from SEM to assess the porosity to ATSM testing!
 
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away...

I had a thought of making a rocket type rifle projectile. We have the RPG, the LAW and Dragon type stuff...but I was imagining a rifle sized projectile. Thrust cone type base. Some sort of solid fuel that is ignited and starts acceleration just prior to leaving the barrel The projectile would lose mass as it flies but arrive at the target at extreme velocity, maybe at extreme range. Of course, thrust vector and accuracy issues... I am sure this could be developed for Naval sized or artillery type guns, but what the point...but to make it fit in a standard rifle, well, now we are talking Heinlein type futuristic weapons.
 
I had not considered a non-Newtonian approach. Cornstarch bullets!! hahaha I'll have to think about this a bit. I mean, the instant shock of ignition and all, you might be on to something. Maybe increasingly smaller bore to create more shear type forces on the surface of the projectile. @Makinchips208 that would be an interesting machine to build, a tapered bore rifle barrel boring machine, make it even more complicated, gain twist that sucker.

I have a few thoughts.
Let’s collaborate!

But I’d be inclined to just put some pointed carbide chunks in Accelerator Sabots, but I wouldn’t… nope, I can’t…
 
i still think its possible to utilize a compressive shank with a meplat to ogive material that is a harder ceramic. could use a modified throat with a slow twist to a faster twist rate for ballistic stability of this material. Again, something im on the fringes on. either shot or model.
 
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Just 3rd whiskey rambling..but I feel like the we are looking at the future of warfare and munitions via drone. Even small drones. That old clip is what I think is coming at us real fast.
 
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I even drew up a capacitor tipped arrow to discharge on impact. Even a bad arrow hit would result in a downed or dead critter.
oohhh we are talking about bow season now. I am not shooting the first spike i see here in iowa hahahah. this s part always amazes me. the way people design a trocar thats spring loaded. so load the trocar opening onto the most reward part of the tip. potentially can crack a rib or penetrate to open past the rib. opening later is always a better idea. the million dolllar idea is not to load x3 3 inch blades 2mm past the fucking tip of the arrow. yes if you have enough mass itll shatter the ribs but theres a reason why everyone (including me freaks the fuck out of a deer with one of the REAPERs)

Another issue is the missunderstanding of impulse vs momentum. As a clinical reseracher there is different material properties to cartiladge to bone. Bone will shear easier but cartiladge will dampen the energy. combine the moduli of both systems and you have alot of energy loss. small compact trocar with front facing blades (probably two that are not more than 3 inches) yes someone has done this but you can tune it .
 
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Just 3rd whiskey rambling..but I feel like the we are looking at the future of warfare and munitions via drone. Even small drones. That old clip is what I think is coming at us real fast.

we are in a cold ware betwen the US and China. autonomous drone warfare is a huge hot topic. world powers realized the nature of asymterical warefare capabilites when a 300 dollar drone can take down a 15 mill ruski attack helicopter
 
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Unless English is your second language, I can't see you getting anywhere.

Mostly because you can't clearly get your ideas out.

It reads like gibberish, half formed thoughts.
Sounds like my anonymous reviewer in microfluidic papers. politically tinged with a little disdain for the over-representation of non-whites in engineering.
 
When I was still a real young guy, my mom took us to church all of the time. I am not a real religious man, not a man of faith, but I am a believer.

Our preacher started out a sermon about the Tower of Babel. Man had thought he could build a literal stairway to heaven. Maybe he was. Then he quoted the verse about how a man thinks is what a man is. He theorized that whatever man can think of doing, he can.
Cars, rifles...
Man imagined flying and we do.
Man imagined going to the moon, and mars. We have and will.

Maybe that's not as inspirational as I think but you get the point.
 
Paragraph1: is this the same rule of trad AP ammo. ie 30-06 legal to buy and say 338 LM to 50 BMG is legal to buy since it has never been chambered in a mass produced pistol.
30-06 is legal only by ATF fiat and date of manufacture, and even then it’s component sales to reloaders, as FFLs selling finished AP ammo is a no-go unless it has a very specific ATF exemption. (which M2 and M855 both have)
paragraph 2: The big utility here would be modifying the porosity and compression resistance. It is easy to engineer a non AP round using a modifiable composite ( hundreds of published ways) to turn a 5.56 into a better home defense round. crazy fragmentation and no penetration past a stud in an apartment. this would be great for gun owners if it took off because the argument for 2A Ar ownership for home defense would be more validated ( vs m855 or other steel core penetrators that would be fucked for home defense). Think porosity could be non-orthogonal with various moduli materials that lead to shearing and fracturing.
Those rounds already exist in sintered metal projectiles, and are not used because depth of penetration in tissue becomes completely insufficient to actually do any meaningful damage to an assailant until you get up to shotgun slug sizes. Examples here would be any of several sintered copper projectiles who have been well demonstrated, vs a DDupleks Kaviar Black shotgun slug. you need that much mass to gain meaningful effect.
For mil: highly brittle and high compression resistance ceramics like zirc (utilized in the dental industry and easily milled - worked on one of these projects) could destroy UHMWPE. It would also shatter another composite ceramic if the modulus was tuned. It would be the absolute opposite of barrier blind though.
The problem you’ll run into here is again needing to outperform tungsten against multi-layer, multi-material ceramics. Modern X-Sapi plates are using multiple different types of ceramic and incredibly advanced weaves and adhesives to create “”composite”” plates that are not susceptible to the weaknesses of any one material
Paragraph 3: yeah, I don't know. I will have to see on this. I have a shit ton of zirc composites and am in academia. I mightttt manufacture some polymers with different moduli and see if I can first tune them in a 20 gauge (Sabot) and go from there.
its an aerodynamics issue, if you want the sabot to separate reliably, it needs to want to do that at the first opportunity, and the first free space to start expanding is the baffles of a muzzle brake or suppressor
Paragraph 4: yes and yes and idk. I am small an no one. That would not be an IP violation if I am using a engineering composite that was new with a different Mechanism of action (MOA). The MOA would be the basis of the infringement lawsuit. But you are right I could still get in trouble becuase burden of proof would be on me to an extent.
The argument they would be using is not mechanism of action based, but the use of high tech polymer as the Sabot. that’s what they hold the patent on last I checked, which was because I had a similar idea at one time but using a different material to your proposition.