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ONE OF THE IMPORTANT UNRESOLVED OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IS CAVITATION IN CONTROL VALVES. EACH YEAR COSTLY SHUTDOWNS ARE NECESSARY TO REPAIR VALVES DAMAGED BY CAVITATION. THE PROBLEM IS MORE THAN JUST AN ECONOMICAL BURDEN ON THE UTILITY, IT CAN CREATE SAFETY-RELATED PROBLEMS BECAUSE A VALVE DAMAGED BY CAVITATION MAY NOT BE ABLE TO PERFORM ITS INTENDED FUNCTION. THE PRIMARY REAS ...

The applicant will develop a wave energy harvesting system for NOAA buoys. It will ve entirely self-contained (no protruding elements), modular, scalable, and easily deployed. The system employs a unique, inertial mechanism that responds to acceleration forces created by waves. This mechanism will be combined with (1) a proprietary generator that is sensitive to very low levels of torque and ha ...

The gray whale migration generates many hours of video that must be examined carefully to identify passing whales and get an accurate count of their numbers. Unfortunately, humans lack the necessary attention span. To solve this problem, a detector will be developed that can process hours of video, detecting whale blows while minimizing false positives and negatives. With an accurate record of ...

Storm surge poses a grave threat to both life and property as hurricanes make landfall. The ability to monitor surge in real-time using a densely-space network of sensors with integrated data recording and telemetry would provide NOAA with a unique capability. Our approach is to offer a system which incorporates a flexible multi-modal data acquisition platform with integrated telemetry for real-ti ...

Over the last decade, it has been noted that offshore wind energy resource development could prove extensively valuable in many areas of our nation’s growth, including continued diversification of our energy supply, more options for cost-competitive electricity in coastal and Great Lakes regions, and economical stimulation through new and lasting infrastructure development. The challenges associ ...

This Phase I proposal determines the feasibility of growing multiple species of macroalgae in commercial marine aquafarm environments. Marine aquaculture is a logical outgrowth of successful wild harvest seaweed businesses over the last several years. Developing a marine aquaculture prototype will foster the science of sea farming. Extending growing seasons for multi-species would provide year ...

A new radiometric vicarious calibration approach for the Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band’s (DNB) high gain stage (HGS) is proposed that will complement traditional, extended source, radiance-based calibrations, which are based on natural lunar illumination and not as accurate as desired. The proposed research will produce affordable, field-deployable, NIST-traceable point source lamps that can ac ...

The use of unattended floats, platforms, and drones addresses the immense challenge of cost-effectively characterizing the chemistry of the oceans. The proposed program strengthens this capability by demonstrating the feasibility of Laser Fluorescence Enhanced Flame Spectrophotometry (LFEFS) for the simultaneous and high precision measurement of calcium and strontium. These are key elements of the ...