Award Data

Modern turbine engines undergo extensive ground testing in test cells during development. These engines are instrumented with numerous strain gages for high-frequency dynamic strain measurements. Currently, analog signals from these gages are routed out of the test cell to remote data acquisition equipment over hundreds of feet of wire. With up to 200 gages to be installed, the task of patching ...

Political, economic, and environmental considerations require that the national dependence on petroleum-based transportation fuels, especially imported oil, be reduced by accelerating the development of domestic renewable alternatives. The United States has the potential to generate, sustainably, about 1.3 billion dry tons of biomass per year, and bio-oil derived from this renewable feedstock cou ...

There is a troubling decline in the number of US citizens training to become scientists and engineers. There are insufficient numbers of qualified science teachers in the middle schools, where interest in science must be kindled. Technology enhanced learning environments (TELEs), which could improve science education, are not being widely deployed. This Phase I project will customize a TELE to a) ...

The release of volatile organic compounds from industrial processes can have negative impacts on the environment while also posing significant health and safety concerns. In the environment, many of these chemical are considered precursors to ground-level ozone, which is the primary component of smog. In addition, many volatile organic compounds are cancer-causing in humans while others pose dan ...

The Air Force is in need of a system to measure stray laser energy during the open-air test-range firing of high-energy laser weapons such as the Airborne Laser. In Phase I, a laboratory-scale system composed of four hemispherical-imaging laser-scattering detectors was constructed to monitor light scattered from stray laser energy during simulated laser weapon engagements. It was demonstrated th ...

Radiological sources are in everyday use in numerous industries. Illicit removal of this material from storage could result in construction of a Radiological Dispersal Device or Dirty Bomb. A pervasive means of securing radiological materials and identifying breaches in security is required. Ideally, existing passive surveillance technology would be used, thereby enabling rapid and cost effective ...

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will employ a staged pyrolysis and combustion process as a method to ""recycle"" mixed solid waste materials (paper and plastic packaging, and food scrap) from restaurants. The hydrogen-rich fuel gases generated from these solid waste streams can then be burned to produce heat and power. The proposed technology can be used for most so ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the development of improved high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes for ultracapacitors. The proposed innovation is the use of proprietary carbon-preparation techniques to produce high-performance, low-cost carbon electrodes. The first Phase I objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of manufacturing carbon electrodes ...

The overall intent of this project is to produce cost-effective component technologies that will facilitate the development of compact sensing nodes which are utilized by deep submergence vector sensing line arrays. The principle application for this effort is targeted for the augmented reliable acoustic path vector sensing line array. In that regard, the Phase I study will develop a prototype c ...

The Doppler cue obtained from using narrowband Doppler-sensitive sonar waveforms is an effective discriminator of moving targets from clutter. Often, however, targets will exhibit low Doppler, caused by slow-moving or cross-range motion, with Doppler further reduced in multistatic sonar for targets between source and receiver. Moreover, the strategically important littoral conditions exhibit incre ...