Award Data

Low-power Hall thrusters offer potentially important advantages for certain military applications but issues of lifetime and efficiency degradation at lower powers are issues hindering its utilization. A factor impacting efficiency is that thestate-of-the-art techniques for electron generation used for neutralization (such as hollow cathodes operating on the same propellant as the thruster) do no ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop a wide-bandgap, thin-film semiconductor to enable a high-efficiency light-absorber layer for the top cell in monolithic tandem or multi-junction thin-film photovoltaics. Because of relatively high device packaging costs, tandem junction thin-film photovoltaic devices can offer higher watt per square meter and lower cost p ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II project will develop and optimize the Rapid Freeze Prototyping (RFP) technology, producing ice patterns used in investment casting to fabricate dental castings for crowns, bridges, implant-retailed restorations and other prostheses, as well as to integrate the developed RFP technology with commercial digital imaging and computer-aid ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II project will develop and optimize the Rapid Freeze Prototyping (RFP) technology, producing ice patterns used in investment casting to fabricate dental castings for crowns, bridges, implant-retailed restorations and other prostheses, as well as to integrate the developed RFP technology with commercial digital imaging and computer-aid ...

Rapid growth in the performance and capabilities of thermography, and the increased use of composite materials in the construction and repair of military and commercial aircraft, has strongly positioned it as a viable NDI technique. In Phase I, ThermalWave Imaging, Inc. and UD-CCM propose to develop an AC coupled, non-contact Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) technique that can evaluate 3-D state o ...

ABSTRACT: This proposal is concerned with the development of a novel failure initiation and progressive failure analysis modeling method for advanced composite structures, including the analysis of selected structural joints utilizing a statistically based micromechanics model embedded in a 3D non-linear finite element code. The method accounts for the interaction between out-of-plane failure and ...

The objective of this program is to build upon many decades of experience with magnetic flowmeters to develop a next-generation system to measure the burning surface admittance of high-energy-density solid propellants at high frequencies and pressures. Using the results of research on solid propellant rocket motor combustion instability from the past fifty years, one can directly measure the ac ...

Michigan Aerospace Corporation proposes to develop an optical MEMS based skin friction sensor specifically designed for hypersonic applications. This instrument will be capable of shear stress resolutions as small as 0.01 Pa, have a high dynamic range, and data rates in excess of 100 Hz. The sensor will be compact and tolerant of the extreme environmental conditions of hypersonic propulsion test f ...

The realization of materials with record mechanical and electrical properties is of paramount importance to the Air Force and other branches of the US Armed Forces. Layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly is capable of producing nanocomposite materials with record properties surpassing those made by many traditional composite preparation techniques. However the process is time consuming and typically yiel ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project aims to develop highly sensitive and inexpensive uncooled microbolometers using ultra-thin films of metals, metal oxides, or semi-metals. These microbolometers will be attractive for use in portable night vision devices and other thermal imaging applications that require a Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) of less than 20 mK. We ...