Explore the vast range of titles available.

Recently, because of the complex international situation and combat environment in the future, the development and application of new concept weapons have raised higher performance requirements for manufacturing technologies. However, at present, most weapons are still prepared using traditional charging methods (cast curing, pressure casting, and melt casting), which require subtractive manufacturing (SM) treatments before use. At present, the demand for weapon products is shifting towards reactive micro structures, high preparation efficiency, miniaturization, and controllable energy release. Besides, the modern “energetic-on-a-chip” trend was expected to reduce size and cost while increasing safety and maintaining performance. In this case, the traditional charging methods were not preferred due to their inherent drawbacks, such as being limited to the model, requiring long solvent drying times and recycling required and pores/cracks caused by the shrinkage of slurry, and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to innovate the processing and manufacturing technology of weapons and address the boundaries of existing charging methods, and this will enable the precise customization of high-quality energetic materials and avoid many defects. Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing technology, has been booming recently. The application of additive manufacturing technology in the field of energetic materials (EMs) can promote the innovation of manufacturing technology for EMs and regulate the microstructure. Additionally, 3D printing technology can break through the existing design and development mode, expand explosive charging technology, and enable the distribution of different types of explosives and explosive density in a specific space area. Besides, 3D printing can fabricate “reactive microstructures” (RMS), which offer a deeper understanding of the EMs’ combustion and detonation phenomena at the micro- and nanoscale. Thus, the explosive/propellant grains with multiple damage modes can be designed and manufactured. This paper aims to summarize the current progress in the 3D printing of EMs, analyze the corresponding mechanisms, and provide guidance for future research.

To tackle challenges of man-machine contact, manual operation, and low degree of mechanical automation in the charging process of traditional polymer bonded explosive (PBX), we adopted a vertical extrusion charging process to realize continuous extrusion charging of the slurry into missiles. In this work, the screw structures were optimized via simulation software after slurry physical property analysis, as well as the influence of the parameters including speed and temperature on the process was further explored. The results indicated that, compared with the pineapple head structure featuring a high shear function, the conventional three-piece screw structure maintains the moderate fluctuation in viscous heating of the slurry, which is suitable for stable and safe delivery of high-sensitivity slurries. Meanwhile, an appropriate outlet size φ and barrel cone angle θ contributes to pressure distribution manipulation in the flow path, and a relatively high output was obtained at 30 mm and 1°, respectively. Additionally, the adjustment of process parameters such as speed and temperature is conducive to reducing occurrence probability of local hot spots and restraining deformation of screw blade structures, the balance between output and process hazard was achieved.