Award Data

ABSTRACT: We propose to develop for the Air Force a high-efficiency Waste Heat Removal System (WHRS) that removes large amounts of waste heat from aircraft with negligible impacts on signature and aerodynamic performance. Our WHRS absorbs heat from aircraft thermal loads, including a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system that absorbs and stores heat from the cooling system of a High Energy Laser ( ...

Under this proposed SBIR effort, Bridger Photonics, Inc. (Bridger) will advance its industry-leading length metrology capabilities to reach sub-10-nanometer precision,>40 Hz update rate,>10 cm measurement range, and sufficient sensitivity to enable measurement of high reflection angles (>5 degrees) on ceramic materials with bulk scattering. Bridger will integrate this metrology system with OptiPro ...

ABSTRACT: Accurate prediction of part performance/reliability is at the core of health management of air vehicles and of supply chain management. Methodologies are needed to accurately predict/evaluate parts performance/reliability with compounding problem criteria/factors for early corrective actions and acquisition of aerospace parts. Accurate problem part (bad actor) identification and resou ...

ABSTRACT: The efficient coherent beam combination of a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system requires a reduction in non-linearities of the power amplifier sections. Fiber non-linearities, such as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), provide an upper limit on the operating power of kW-class fiber laser systems. These non-linear effects can be redu ...

Refractory alloys such as tantalum-tungsten and ceramics are being pursued as a solution to high temperature erosive wear of gun barrels. However rifling of these materials with conventional broaching and electrochemical milling is proving to be difficult. This proposal seeks to demonstrate an innovative alternate grooving method, abrasive waterjet grooving. Waterjets are normally used to cut c ...

Based on the promising results obtained under Navy Phase I SBIR funding, nLight proposes a Phase II continuation toward the development of fiber-coupled high power and high efficiency diode laser pumps around 975 nm that operate at high ambient temperatures. Under the Phase I SBIR base program, nLight designed, demonstrated, and delivered to Navy a 30-W, 975-nm fiber-coupled (200µm / 0.15 NA) las ...

ABSTRACT: The Phase I Versatile Structural Radiation Shielding (VSRS) Effort has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of 3D printing multifunctional spacecraft structures with integral multi-layer, multi-material, minimum-mass radiation shielding. We developed novel space-compatible materials to enable 3D printing with combinations of low-Z and high-Z materials, developed advanced FDM techni ...

ABSTRACT: nLIGHT proposes the development of of an all-fiber, master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configuration that will meet the Air Force requirements for a 10 mJ, 300 ns pulsed laser source. With the exception of the output power amplifier fiber, this device will be based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components. This proposal is based on an Er-doped fiber amplifier that is res ...

The overall goal of this Phase I project is to show the feasibility of using state-of-the-art parameterization tools for shape changes (i.e., volumetric deformation/morphing provided by Sculptor) coupled with a fast FEA tool (i.e., the MAX method) to quickly calculate the dynamic response of the many different shapes necessary for sample-based stochastic vibration analysis of IBRs with blends. The ...

ABSTRACT: Coordinate Registration (CR) of OTHR targets requires accurate real-time ionospheric modeling coupled with HF propagation calculations to convert radar-measured target signal delays and beam steers to geographical position. Our team is the developer of one of the most sophisticated ionospheric data assimilation capabilities currently in existence, GPSII (GPS Ionospheric Inversion; pron ...