Award Data

Obscurant materials are used by the Army to protect both the soldier as well as military physical assets. Several obscuration systems have been developed over the years to defeat threats in all areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Current obscurant materials typically consist of off-the-shelf or processed metal particles or flakes in which key properties such as particle size and aspect ratio ...

Montana Emergent Technologies, Inc., (MET) in conjunction with the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University, proposes to investigate the feasibility of using biomineralization-based technology to seal unwanted leakage pathways relative to carbon dioxide stored in deep geologic formations. The title of this Small Business Technology Transfer Research Phase I project is Using Bio ...

There is a need to increase the beam intensity of particle accelerators based on superconducting RF cavities, but detrimental Higher Order Modes (HOMs) generate inside the cavities. HOMs excite the beam and lead to instabilities and particle losses. HOM dampers absorb this RF power and are critical component, but next generation HOM absorber materials are needed to enable increased beam intensitie ...

Selection of the Plasma-Facing Component (PFC) material composition is a primary consideration in future fusion reactor design. The PFC materials must not only withstand the harsh operating conditions of the reactor, but the amount of tritium uptake experienced by the PFC during operation is a significant factor. Proper operation, safety and environmental impact mandate that t ...

Calculations undertaken by physicists for solving fundamental problems such as Lattice Quantum Chromo Dynamics (LQCD) are prohibitively demanding without expertly optimized software. Such software is very complex and costly to write and maintain without automated tools, especially for advanced heterogeneous architectures. PUMA-V provides these automated tools, an optimization and visualization too ...

The ultimate goal of the project is to demonstrate that the rotating liner engine (RLE) can increase fuel efficiency in heavy duty vehicles by about 3.5-4% at full load, about 25% at idle, and about 10% for an average duty cycle, can reduce CO2, NOx and PM and reduce engine wear. Design already completed. The face seal is the only technical challenge of the concept, and the main design features pe ...

Solar water heaters are a well-established renewable energy technology that has been widely adopted outside of the United States. Here we propose to significantly improve the evacuated solar tube collectors (ETC) by utilizing the dry-drawable carbon nanotube (CNT) sheets for solar energy absorption and CNT multifunctional nanocomposites with functional layers of heat accumulators and heat transpo ...

A significant portion of the waste heat from engine exhaust can be recovered using thermoelectric generators to achieve up to 10% gain in automotive mileage. There have been several efforts underway on this front but most have focused on demonstrating thermoelectric generators using bulk materials that consume significant amount of raw materials and are prone to failures due to thermal expansion, ...

This project will develop plasmonic films that perform the dual functions of optical filtering and electrical conduction for solar-blind ultraviolet radiation (UV) detectors. Two types of plasmonic structures will be investigated, namely nano-hole arrays in an aluminum film atop UV radiation detecting semiconductors. These two similar plasmonic structures support different types of surface plasm ...

This Phase I program is focused on enhancement of the performance of MgZnO based solar blind detectors. MgZnO alloys have superior optoelectronic properties with bandgaps suitable for solar blind detection. Issues related to doping and miscibility will be addressed. This will involve the use of advanced MOCVD and MBE growth techniques and consideration of both Schottky and p-n junction devices. No ...