SBIR-STTR Award

Touchstone proposes to build on past thermal protection system (TPS) efforts and develop an innovative lightweight and low-cost system that provides protection from lightning strikes as well as from heat and atmospheric debris. This will be accomplished by utilizing a lightweight carbon foam (CFOAM) as the foundational material and varying the properties of the foam through choice of precursor and processing methods. Electrical and thermal modeling will be used to determine the optimal combination of materials, and these will be tested at the sub-scale laboratory level. Results will be compared to existing methods of lightning protection in order to demonstrate improvement. Approved for Public Release 14-MDA-8047 (14 Nov 14)

The feasibility of using a low-cost, coal-based carbon foam (CFOAM) for providing lightning and thermal protection for ground-based missile systems was demonstrated during Phase I.Touchstone proposes to build on the Phase I efforts and take the development of this system to the next stage.During Phase I, a concept was developed that will provide sufficient thermal protection to the underlying materials and provide the ability to dissipate the energy from a lightning strike while reducing the weight by 60% compared to the current state-of-the-art.This was done by taking advantage of the higher electrical conductivity of CFOAM compared to the baseline material.This promising concept will be further developed during the Phase II effort by building and testing panels and by feeding the test data back into the models from Phase I in order to find the best combination and arrangement of materials.The Phase II effort will also include a study to determine the best method of configuring the solution in order to minimize the production and installation costs. ---------- Touchstone proposes to continue the development of an innovative combination of materials to provide protection from lightning and heat for large missile systems. Touchstone Research Laboratory (Touchstone) has been developing thermal protection system (TPS) concepts around its carbon foam product (CFOAM®) for several years. This material is a lightweight, high-temperature material with a low coefficient of thermal expansion and tailorable thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity. CFOAM can be easily combined with other materials to create a multi-layered system with additional protection from lightning and other threats. This sequential Phase II will build on the accomplishments of the Phase I and Phase II efforts and extend the technology readiness level and initiate design and process validation. Approved for Public Release | 20-MDA-10482 (18 May 20)