Designing materials for next-generation propulsion systems

(Press-News.org) The ability to reliably order groceries or takeout, have rapid package delivery, check the weather forecast, or follow GPS tracking is all a part of the US’s ever-growing satellite and space economy. The continued growth of this economy relies on advancements in propulsion technologies. One such breakthrough is the “Rotating Detonation Engine" (RDE). The RDE offers the ability to deliver satellites to precise orbits in outer space with greater robustness and reduced fuel consumption and emissions than with current conventional engines. However, there are many fundamental scientific challenges that remain related to designing materials systems that can perform under these extreme engine conditions. 

A new multi-institutional collaborative $2 million grant, "Thriving While Detonating – Materials for Extreme Dynamic Thermomechanical Performance,” led by Natasha Vermaak, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, addresses some of these materials design challenges. The team was one of 25 to receive National Science Foundation funding as part of the organization’s Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program.  

Vermaak and her collaborators, Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, an assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and three University of California Irvine professors - Daniel Mumm and Lorenzo Valdevit (Department Materials Science and Engineering) and Xian Shi, (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), will investigate the development of structural materials systems that are resistant to high-frequency, high-amplitude thermomechanical loads for propulsion and power applications with a focus on rotating detonation engines. The project includes additional collaborators from the Air Force Research Laboratory (Edwards, WPAFB), as well as industry stakeholders, which will promote the translation of their materials and tools into application. 

The RDE is a revolutionary engine concept that generates power through sustaining a circulating detonation wave in an annular chamber at thousands of meters per second. The RDE is promising because it can produce power levels orders of magnitude higher than conventional engines, while providing higher efficiencies, more compact designs, and higher thrust-to-weight ratios. While RDE technology is advancing rapidly, the lack of established materials solutions to contend with the extreme thermomechanical loadings associated with detonation remains a critical barrier to deployment. This DMREF team will use an integrated approach that leverages experiments, simulations, and AI/machine learning to develop a stronger fundamental understanding of how changing composition and microstructure of advanced structural alloys will affect the damage and failure mechanisms in the RDE environment. 

“This is an exciting opportunity to identify breakthrough materials capabilities that may spur advancements in propulsion systems of the future,” Vermaak says.

The NSF DMREF Program is intended to drive the design, discovery and development of advanced materials needed to address major societal challenges. The DMREF program supports materials design and development through the integration of experiments, computation and data-driven methods, while fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and training the workforce. Since 2012, DMREF has been NSF's primary response to the federal Materials Genome Initiative, whose mission is to discover, develop and deploy new materials twice as fast and at a fraction of the cost of traditional research methods. More information about past and current DMREF projects can be found at dmref.org.  

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