Award Data

In an emergency or other special situation, government agencies can send messages to mobile phones in affected areas using Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). The messages might convey life-saving information where it is needed, but vulnerabilities in the underlying mobile networks could allow bad actors to use WEA to send their own messages for harmful purposes. NAND Technologies will research and d ...

There are abundant, valuable mineral resources available in mixed sea salts, bitterns, and brines. These mineral resources are generally not being exploited because the separating products from these salt mixtures is challenging and cost prohibitive. In some cases, these mixed salt systems are not considered as waste because they have simply been stockpiled and are awaiting a practical processing ...

The simulation of magnetically confined plasmas requires consideration of multiple overlapping scales. Continuum models address reactor scale behaviors, while particle methods capture fine scale behavior. The complex combination of physics and reactor geometry results in simulations involving massive calculations and data sets, which can only be executed on parallel computers. Thus, there is a cri ...

OLED lighting panels have been available commercially for several years, with relatively slow adoption into commercial and consumer fixtures in the US. This project addresses both channels through the commercialization of an ultra-thin, bendable, high-efficacy OLED light engine in which a panel and driver are engineered together in one low-cost, easy-to-use package. The most significant benefit of ...

In a loss of coolant accident, the fuel rod cladding can overheat and burst open exposing the nuclear fuel within. It can also react chemically with the residual steam present in the core to release hydrogen, forming a potentially explosive mixture that can challenge containment integrity. Accident-tolerant fuel attempts to prevent these effects by replacing the zirconium-alloy fuel rod cladding w ...

Seawater contains about 3 parts per billion of uranium. With a total ocean volume of approximately 1.3109 km3, there is at least 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater which is about 1000 times the amount of uranium known to exist in terrestrial ores. Mining uranium from seawater is economically feasibility if an efficient, reusable and low-cost adsorbent could be developed. In the past year, ...

Currently there are three types of storage systems used to store dry spent fuel: unshielded canisters in vertically-oriented shielded overpacks or silos, unshielded canisters horizontally oriented in concrete modules, and shielded casks. Different types of damage are possible for all three systems. The health and safety of the public will be best protected if the containment and shielding surround ...

Cost and time associated with material waste, quality control, inspection, and manufacturing of nuclear fuel assembly components can be detrimental to nuclear plant design and development. Specifically, holddown springs are prime component examples that inherently carry these issues due to their complex geometries and attachment points. The design engineer must always weigh the manufacturing pract ...

Supercritical CO2 power cycles offer the promise of high efficiency in a compact footprint with a potential to offer disruptive changes to the US energy infrastructure. Applications include bottom cycles for electric co-generation power plants, nuclear power production, concentrated solar and other renewables as well as propulsion engines for space propulsion. Aerodynamic design theory dictates th ...

Continued use of nuclear power is critical to meeting carbon emission goals and ensuring national security. Nuclear power production will rely on both current generation (LWR and PWR) as well as next generation designs including very-high-temperature, molten-salt, supercritical- water-cooled, gas-cooled, sodium-cooled, and/or lead-cooled reactors. The development and deployment of these high tempe ...