Award Data

The advanced properties achieved by modern ceramic matrix composite (CMC) structures depend critically on the surface condition of reinforcement materials used in the manufacturing process. Contamination of reinforcement surfaces can result in brittle phases, low melting point eutectics, or foreign compounds at the critical interface between the reinforcement material and the ceramic matrix, which ...

Sand and dust ingestion can be a significant issue for military aircraft operating in desert environments. For gas-turbine engines, ingested sand erodes engine components such as turbine blades, accelerating engine wear. Currently, no operational systems exist for tracking sand and dust loading in gas-turbine engines. We propose to develop an Optical Particle Counting, Sizing, and Composition (OPC ...

A key technology enabler for next generation EMI shielding applications is low loss, lightweight, flexible, conductive carbon nanotube (CNT) tape. The primary goal of this effort is to determine the optimal geometry for a CNT based EMI shield to provide equivalent shielding effectiveness of cable harnesses and other electronics on the V-22 Osprey, while maintaining a maximum weight savings. The ap ...

The Abbott Ball Company has engineered a new, breakthrough material: Powder Metal Nitinol 60, which is an alloy of 60% Nickel and 40% Titanium. The material can be hardened to above Rockwell 60, has much better corrosion resistance than austenitic or martensitic stainless steels, weights 15% less than steel and can flex a full 5% without any permanent deformation. Originally discovered by Dr. Will ...

The energetic material community has a need to produce energetic materials in varying particle sizes and morphologies. Control of particle and morphology allows the formulator to investigate various aspects of processing and performance associated with the energetic material. Unfortunately, recrystallization of energetic materials to achieve the desired physical characteristics can prove to be a c ...

Cabling faults can be difficult to identify and locate when a large number of interconnections are used such as in the shipboard Machinery Control System. Ungrounded systems further complicate diagnosis, since signal voltages and currents are small amplitude. It often takes a considerable amount of time to identify and locate the fault, and the equipment capability can be substantially reduced whi ...

The boat transfer, launch, and recovery system proposed will utilize a system of composite moving ways, cradle, and configurable bouyant bladders, controlled by the Advanced Communication and Control System (ACCS) to safely launch, recover, and transfer a variety of boats ranging in size as a minimum, from 7 M to 11 M, with a variety of hull shapes and materials, including unmanned surface vessels ...

Instrumented manikins are used to assess the risks of burn injuries and evaluate the ability of clothing and other protective equipment to mitigate the injury potential during compartment or flash fires or other thermal threats. Recent data indicate that fabric stresses due to body motion are important in determining whether the clothing will break open and expose the skin to significant burn inju ...

Sonar performance predictions are often unreliable due to the lack of accurate information about the acoustic properties of the ocean around the globe. We propose to demonstrate an environmental estimation technique that uses reverberation from active sonar transmissions to infer environmental properties including the sound speed profile, the seafloor geoacoustic properties, and the geographically ...

Advanced underwater vehicles (unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), torpedoes, etc.) are key to achieving long-term objectives for undersea force projection and surveillance. Existing battery-based power systems for these vehicles do not meet mission requirements due to low energy density, prohibitive cost, and/or time-consuming maintenance. Power systems based on liquid fuels and oxidizers (collec ...