Award Data

The availability of low AC loss magnesium diboride (MgB2) superconducting wires enables much lighter weight superconducting stator coils than with any other metal or ceramic superconductor. This, together with Hyper Tech's capability to fabricate long piece-length (potentially 60 km) wires, in turn enables lighter superconducting motors/generators, essential components in the turboelectric ai ...

Sierra Lobo proposes to develop a technology that can provide both cooling and electric power generation using heat. When coupled with a radioisotope heat source, the technology is ideally suited to the needs of a long-lived Venus lander. The heat source powers Sierra Lobo's Thermoacoustic Stirling Heat Engine (TASHE), which is directly coupled to a Pulse Tube Refrigerator (PTR) in a duplex ...

Core noise will become a larger component of engine noise overall, as more efficient design trends of fan and jet noise reduction technologies are implemented. The necessity to keep weight and material costs low, as well as the complex geometry and high temperatures involved with the combustion region, make the production of acoustic liners a difficult task. CRG will develop and produce a prototy ...

With the capacity and performance of FPGAs suitable for space borne applications continuously increasing, the design of FPGAs is becoming increasingly complex involving trading off or simultaneous optimization of space, speed, and power. RNET and ANL are proposing to develop software infrastructure that facilitates automatic performance tuning of FPGAs in terms of speed, power, and size. We introd ...

The proposed load-bearing, tank-applied, multi-layer insulation system consists of a set of highly reflective radiation shields made from 1 mil thick aluminized Mylar that is supported from a "pop-up tent like" support frame. In addition, the support frame carries the mass of an actively cooled shield and outer MLI blanket enabling ultra low heat leak storage of cryogenic fluids. The support fra ...

The proposed research effort explores the use of a nanosecond pulse driven offset semiconducting surface dielectric barrier discharge (SSDBD) device for the control of high speed, near surface air flows and the reduction of skin friction drag. With the nanosecond discharge, very high field strengths are applied and then the field is turned off before glow-to-filamentary transition occurs. The se ...

The proposed work focuses on implementing fast-response pressure-sensitive paint for measurements of unsteady pressure in rotorcraft applications. Significant rotorcraft problems such as dynamic stall, rotor blade loads in forward flight, and blade-vortex interaction all have significant unsteady pressure oscillations that must be resolved in order to understand the underlying physics. Installatio ...

The Phase 2 effort will be used to advance the material and design technologies that were explored in the Phase 1 study of hybrid gears. In this hybrid approach, the conventional metallic web is replaced with a composite element. This alternative design generates a significant weight reduction and the potential for the reduction of noise and vibration. The Phase 2 program will make the first larg ...

The proposed Phase 2 project consists of the physical integration of our Phase 1 small, compact exciter with a "flight like" igniter or spark plug capable of hot-fire testing. The exciter/igniter unit will operate to a pre-established subset of expected flight performance requirements established and met in Phase 1. The exciter/igniter unit will physically integrate the exciter electronics with ...

In Phase 1, CRG demonstrated the feasibility of a novel approach to prepare cyanate ester based elastomers. This approach polymerizes in-situ siloxane within a reactive elastomer precursor matrix in order to achieve an elastomeric material with highly tunable and desired mechanical properties. This methodology shows great potential in materials development for applications such as space deployabl ...