Influence of Processing Techniques on Mechanical Properties and Impact Initiation of Al-PTFE Reactive Material

Reactive materials (RMs) or impact-initiated materials have received much attention as a class of energetic materials in recent years. To assess the influence of processing techniques on mechanical properties and impact initiation behaviors of an Al-PTFE reactive material, quasi -static compression tests and drop-weight tests were performed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to identify the characteristics of the interior microstructures of the Al-PTFE samples. A sintering process was found to transform Al-PTFE from a brittle to a ductile material with an increased elasticity modulus (from 108-160 MPa to 256-336 MPa) and yield stress (from 12-16 MPa to 19-20 MPa). Increasing the molding pressure from 36 MPa to 182 MPa increased the elastic modulus of all Al-PTFE samples and also the yield stress of unsintered ones. Unsintered samples in general required less energy to initiate than sintered ones. As the molding pressure increased, the impact initiation energy for sintered Al-PTFE fell from 96 J to 68 J, whereas the initiation energy for unsintered Al-PTFE rose from 68 J to 85 J. PTFE nanofiber networks observed in sintered samples formed under the higher molding pressures could contribute to the opposite trends observed in the impact initiation energy of unsintered and sintered Al-PTFE samples.