THIS PROPOSAL WILL BUILD UPON THE WORK OF PROFESSOR CHRIS SCHUH S GROUP AT MIT AND FURTHER DEVELOP THE NEWLY DISCOVERED NANOPHASE SEPARATION SINTERING PROCESS TO ADDRESS THE FABRICATION OF A THERMALLY STABLE MO-W (MOLYBDENUM-TUNGSTEN) ALLOY SUITABLE FOR NUCLEAR THERMAL PROPULSION (NTP) APPLICATIONS. THIS SINTERING METHOD WILL ALLOW FOR PRESSURELESS LOWER-ENERGY SINTERING AS WELL AS APPLICATIONS OF THE ALLOY THROUGH EXTRUSION AND ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING ALLOWING FOR COMPLEX LIGHTWEIGHT PARTS TO BE EASILY PRODUCED. TO ENABLE THIS MODE OF SINTERING THE PROPOSED WORK INVOLVES ELEMENTS OF ALLOY DESIGN AND ITERATIVE PRODUCTION AND SINTERING OF POWDER BY THE TEAM AT MIT. SHARING OF SINTERED MATERIAL WITH NASA MSFC WILL FACILITATE EXTREME TEMPERATURE (>2000K) EVALUATION IN HYDROGEN ENVIRONMENTS WHICH ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ENVIRONMENTS FOR NUCLEAR THERMAL PROPULSION.

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators