Award Data

Self-healing composites and adhesives would alleviate longstanding problems in aerospace structures associated with multiple types of damage mechanisms such as mechanical/thermal fatigue, microcracking, and debonding. A composite cryogenic tank based on self-healing technology would prevent leakage by sealing microcracks throughout the lifetime of the tank and enable the use of composites in this ...

Accurate projection of costs remains an intractable problem in the defense industry despite more than a decade of focus on affordability. The impact to DoD acquisition programs, from cost escalation and the cost of countering capability shortfalls, runs to billions of dollars annually. The objective of this proposal is to develop and demonstrate an ontology-based framework for requirements-based ...

Electromagnetic propulsion using compact toroidal plasmas is ideal for high-thrust, high-Isp missions since velocities and densities are not space charge limited, the self-field structure does not suffer magnetic detachment problems and the inductive electrode-less nature has superior lifetime. This STTR builds on a long history of research by integrating an annular helicon source with a conical ...

We propose to examine the necessary ingredients for the development of marketable codes which will: model the morphology of heterogeneous propellants (a packing code); calculate the thermal and mechancial properties of such a morphology or pack; simulate the combustion of the pack; predict the statistics of aluminum agglomeration on the burning pack surface; simulate the flight of these agglomera ...

In this proposal we exploit the remote sensing attributes of ultrasound to measure temperature, transient temperature and heat flux in liquid rocket combustion chambers. In previous work, we have demonstrated the capability to measure the local temperature at the inner surface of large caliber Navy guns using sensors attached to the external gun barrel surface (2.5” from the measurement point). ...

The rapid increase in the use of the Internet in many aspects of our lives has led to an explosive growth in the spread of malware such as computer worms, viruses, and trojans. Security tools typically examine software for the presence of malware either by looking for specific byte signatures, or (more recently) by analyzing the candidate binary’s internal logic. However, it is surprisingly easy ...

Extending gun barrel life has been a long-standing goal for the US Air Force and other DoD agencies. Currently-used chrome plated barrels are susceptible to erosion and corrosion which affects the accuracy of fired bullets due to material loss along the inner surface. The primary cause of barrel degradation is the poor quality chrome coating and attack of steel inner surface by hot gases and comb ...

A fully monolithically-integrated X-band T/R module using InGaP/GaAs-based HBTs (heterojunction bipolar transistors) for both the transmit and receive functions is proposed. A single device structure designed for both the transmit and receive function is proposed to simplify the design and to lower the cost. The focus in phase I is to realize a low noise figure in InGaP HBT technology.

Air Force engines are required to satisfy both safe-life and fatigue crack growth (damage tolerant) design criteria under the engine structural integrity program (ENSIP). To achieve this requirement, nondestructive inspection techniques are used to detect cracks that can potentially grow to failure within the next inspection interval. However, these nondestructive inspections cannot be performed o ...

In this effort, the architectures for a solid-state night vision goggle (NVG) will be developed and the key technology features of the head-mounted devices solid-state, imaging device demonstrated. The approach is based on 3-D stacked circuit technology. Leveraging our previous work in this area, we will demonstrate a low light level imaging transceiver that includes a back-thinned, CMOS imager bo ...