Enhanced reactivity of mechanically-activated nano-scale gasless reactive materials consolidated via the cold-spray technique

The present study presents a novel method to prepare nano-scale energetic materials with high reactivity, vanishing porosity, structural integrity and arbitrary shape. The experiments have focused on the Ni-Al system. To increase the reactivity, an initial mechanical activation was achieved by the ball milling technique. The consolidation of the materials used the supersonic cold gas spray technique, where the particles are accelerated to high speeds and consolidated via plastic deformation upon impact, forming activated nanocomposites in arbitrary shapes with close to zero porosity. This technique permits to retain the microstructures in the powders and prevents any reactions during the consolidation phase. The material reactivity is addressed through the flame propagation velocity, which showed an increase in the flame speed of the cold sprayed samples by up to one order of magnitude compared to their cold pressed counterparts.