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Completed TRL 3 (started at 2, targeting 3)
Many of the critical propulsion and vehicle technologies that enable space access and exploration require materials exhibiting combinations of properties including high strength, hardness, and toughness while also resisting oxidation, corrosion, and erosion at high temperatures. For example, leading-edge surfaces of hypersonic vehicles, inlets and interior walls of scramjet engines, micrometeorite protective surfaces, and fuel pumps and resistors in rocket motors require materials with combinations of these properties. However, despite decades of effort to develop materials for these extreme environments, many existing materials still fall short of the desired properties. For example: Ultra-high temperature ceramics exhibit exceptional properties at high temperatures but lack ductility (making them susceptible to impact damage). Also, refractory metal alloys have high melting temperatures and are hard, ductile, and tough but lack the oxidative resistance required for some extreme environments. New materials and processing approaches are needed to enable the next generation of spacecraft technology. The proposed research overcomes these limitations of materials by developing new processing pathways that harness the unique chemistry of multi-principal element alloys (MPEA) to produce layered architectures with exceptional combinations of surface and bulk properties. The hypothesis is that the compositional flexibility of MPEAs based on refractory and transition metals will enable in-situ gas-phase surface treatments to produce thin coatings composed of hard, oxidation resistant ceramics while retaining the tough, ductile base alloy. By tuning the alloy composition and processing route, this new class of materials could enable revolutionary gains in the performance a variety of space technologies including rocket motors, hypersonic vehicles with air-breathing engines, and micrometeorite protective surfaces. Additionally, insights from these gains will contribute to the development of an alloy and process-design framework to identify new candidate materials and to predict the properties of these materials.
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