Fabrication of Si3N4 Gun Barrel Liners for Very High Temperature Erosion Resistant Gun Barrels

Current rapid fire guns used by DoD overheat during sustained rapid firing. Silicon nitride (Si3N4)-based ceramics have demonstrated the potential to be used as gun barrel liners. A process has been demonstrated which is capable of producing silicon nitride (Si3N4) ceramic gun barrel liners with in-situ rifling. One meter liners were rifled with the profile of the Army M107 rifle. A novel process was developed to produce the rifling profile on the ID of the bore to net shape without the need for machining which would be prohibitively expensive for ceramics. The Si3N4 barrel liners have been overcoated with titanium alloy as a barrel structure and readied for live fire testing.