SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Ship building programs for the U.S. Navy have growing needs for advanced materials to enhance posture resilience and provide more forward force mobility. Recently, these programs have increasingly relied on the use of fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) materials to manufacture structures throughout the ship. Composite materials have been used on a variety of marine structures including deckhouses, landing ramps, and masts. Composite materials offer several advantages over their metallic predecessors including reduced weight, improved corrosion resistance, increased design flexibility for manufacturing complex shapes, and excellent stiffness and durability. Despite these advantages, these materials still present challenges and require improvement to address safety, durability and strength concerns. The use of composite materials has compromised several critical safety standards including toxicity, flammability and smoke requirements. New FRC formulas have been developed to meet these safety criteria, but the resulting structures suffer from compromised material strength or increased weight, thus negating the benefits of FRCs. An advanced composite material which provides the strength, corrosion resistance, and durability benefits of composite materials without compromising flammability and safety standards is required to fully realize the benefits of this material. A multifunctional fiber network combined with novel flame retardant (FR) materials that is broadly compatible with a variety of resins offers a unique pathway to design next-generation composite structures for Naval applications. Giner will develop a novel FRC composite material combining commercially available resins and fibers with a blend of established and novel flame-retardant molecules. By a judicious optimization process involving commercially available materials, an improved fiber-reinforced composite material will be developed with improved mechanical stability, durability, and flame retardancy properties that can be specifically tailored for a range of naval applications. In addition, the final material will not contain toxic flame retardants, such as melamine or other halogenated compounds, to improve the safety characteristics of the material. Giner will address the need for strong, flame-retardant composite materials by incorporating a unique blend of FR molecules into a composite system reinforced by MWCNTs, resulting in a first-of-its-kind flame-retardant composite with unparalleled base material properties. This novel solution can be easily transitioned to the commercial stage, where it can be incorporated into a variety of process techniques (extrusion, injection molding, etc.) to make complex shapes for different naval applications.
