Abstract

The defense industry has always attracted substantial interest and funding with the main purpose to serve as a deterrent against conflicts. Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy the Eastern European countries are urged to modernize their military capabilities. Within this context we have been approached by Mija Mechanical Plant S.A., a branch of Romarm S.A., a company which includes the most important factories from Romanian defense industries and is the largest national supplier for military ordnance and an important player on the international market. Their main focus is to modernize the piezoelectric elements used in the final stage of the rocket propelled grenades (RPG) for anti-tank and high explosive rounds.
The focus is to upgrade the piezo elements from the current BaTiO3 materials to a high performance Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) based technology. The BaTiO3 piezoelectric elements present o series of drawbacks compared to the PZT as they have significantly smaller piezoelectric effect, phase transitions in the required working range, less stable morphotropic phase boundaries leading to low life time manifested in depolarization. On top of their intrinsic material limitation, the BaTiO3 piezo elements used for RPG manufacturing are scarcely available on the NATO sanctioned markets making this technological upgrade also a strategic desiderate.

Project ID:  433PED din 01/11/2020 (PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2019-3466)

Project Program: PED

Funded by: Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI)

Contractor: National Institute of Materials Physics

Project Status: In progress

Start Date: 01 November 2020, 2020

End Date: 31 October, 2022