Low Cost Support Structures, with New Advanced Composite Materials Tailored for Ultra-Stable Particle Tracking Detectors--HYTEC, Inc., 110 Eastgate Dr., Suite 100, Los Alamos, NM 87544-3304; 505-662-0080
Mr. William O. Miller, Principal Investigator
Mr. William O. Miller, Business Official
DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-99ER82801
Amount: $674,063

Precision charged-particle detectors for high energy physics research rely upon ultra-high-modulus composite materials. These high performance materials satisfy the need for stability and low mass, and possess a high radiation length that limits deleterious interactions with the charged-particles. However, as detector sizes increase, the high costs of the composites materials themselves and the equally expensive graphite-fiber honeycomb core materials become prohibitive. This project will develop new material processing techniques for producing high stiffness sandwich panels from inexpensive composite materials. A very low-density, high modulus syntactic carbon foam material will also be developed as a possible replacement to the graphite-fiber honeycomb core. In Phase I, new material processing techniques were developed to allow ultra-high modulus carbonized laminates to be produced from low cost materials. A sandwich panel was constructed that significantly reduced the mass of the pixel detector panel without a significant impact on stiffness. An investigation of the processing steps needed to produce carbonized syntactic foam was initiated. Phase II will complete the material testing for the low-cost thin carbon-carbon laminates in order to qualify the material as an acceptable replacement to the resin-based composites for particle tracking detectors used in the next generation linear collider (NLC). Also, low cost, high stiffness-to-weight ratio sandwich panels will be developed using the syntactic carbon foam material 

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The new material processing techniques should produce particle detector sandwich facings with 60 percent greater stiffness and overall cost savings of 50 percent. Applications include stable structures for next generation physics detectors, passive cooling of high heat flux electronics, and lightweight space-based optical structures requiring passive cooling.