Heat of combustion of tantalum-tungsten oxide thermite composites

Journal Article · Wed Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Combustion and Flame

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMBUSTFLAME.2010.07.002· OSTI ID:21390736

Cervantes, Octavio G ^[1]; Kuntz, Joshua D; Gash, Alexander E ^[1]; Munir, Zuhair A ^[2]

---

1. Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (United States)
2. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (United States)

The heat of combustion of two distinctly synthesized stoichiometric tantalum-tungsten oxide energetic composites was investigated by bomb calorimetry. One composite was synthesized using a sol-gel (SG) derived method in which micrometric-scale tantalum is immobilized in a tungsten oxide three-dimensional nanostructured network structure. The second energetic composite was made from the mixing of micrometric-scale tantalum and commercially available (CA) nanometric tungsten oxide powders. The energetic composites were consolidated using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique under a 300 MPa pressure and at temperatures of 25, 400, and 500 C. For samples consolidated at 25 C, the density of the CA composite is 61.65 {+-} 1.07% in comparison to 56.41 {+-} 1.19% for the SG derived composite. In contrast, the resulting densities of the SG composite are higher than the CA composite for samples consolidated at 400 and 500 C. The theoretical maximum density for the SG composite consolidated to 400 and 500 C are 81.30 {+-} 0.58% and 84.42 {+-} 0.62%, respectively. The theoretical maximum density of the CA composite consolidated to 400 and 500 C are 74.54 {+-} 0.80% and 77.90 {+-} 0.79%, respectively. X-ray diffraction analyses showed an increase of pre-reaction of the constituents with an increase in the consolidation temperature. The increase in pre-reaction results in lower stored energy content for samples consolidated to 400 and 500 C in comparison to samples consolidated at 25 C. (author)

• OSTI ID: 21390736
• Journal Information: Combustion and Flame, Vol. 157, Issue 12; Other Information: Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved; ISSN 0010-2180
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
COMBUSTION HEAT
TANTALUM
TUNGSTEN OXIDES
DENSITY
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
SINTERING
STORED ENERGY
PRESSURE RANGE MEGA PA 100-1000
SOL-GEL PROCESS
NANOSTRUCTURES
PLASMA
MIXING
POWDERS
STOICHIOMETRY
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K
Thermite
Spark plasma sintering