Non-flammable material

XCOR is developing a non-flammable, high-strength, lightweight Fluoropolymer composite material that is suitable for making liquid oxygen tanks for space flight service.The first phase involved maturing the fluoropolymer composite material suitable for use as tank inner skin material, and fabrication and testing of sample coupons. After the skin coupons demonstrated properties suitable for tank fabrication, a series of sandwich coupons consisting of a skin-foam-skin construction were fabricated and tested.Testing included coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), tensile (stress-strain), porosity, three-point flexural bend, scanning-electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, and flammability hazards analysis performed by NASA's White Sands Test Facilitys (WSTF) in accordance with WSTF methods where XCOR's fluoropolymer composite coupons did not burn when exposed to an 100% oxygen-enriched environment, and when they were immersed in liquid oxygen and held at 60 psi in a pure oxygen atmosphere.

Source: xcor.comAdded: 20 December 2006