Award Data

Reduced mass materials are critical to the success of aerospace systems. Thus, large air and space structures can benefit from lightweight composite materials. However, their adoption is impaired by the lack of a robust, cost-effective fabrication process, principally because the autoclaves used to consolidate composite laminates are so expensive for large parts. This program develops for US aeros ...

For propulsion related applications, materials must be able to demonstrate excellent ablation and oxidation resistance at temperature approaching 3500?C, adequate load bearing capabilities, non-catastrophic failure modes, and ability to withstand transient thermal shock. Advanced Ceramics Research, Inc. (ACR) has developed low cost, flexible-manufacturing processes for Zr & Hf-based carbon fiber r ...

SiC based mirrors offer great potential for space-borne structures. Current support technology is limited due to poor fracture toughness of RBSiC. This proposal offers a novel, composite technology to produce near zero CTE structure exhibiting only 4 kg/m2 aerial density.

Ultra-light materials are enabling for producing space based optical components and support structures. Heretofore, innovative design using existing materials has been the approach to produce lightweight optical systems. Graphite fiber, because of its lightweight, reinforced composites have been a material of frequent choice to produce space based optical components. A novel and unique new approac ...

A novel approach for the development of a lightweight, low-cost, compact, and quick start-up on-board fuel reformer is proposed in this Phase II program. The approach is based on a novel MER¿s technique for the fabrication of multichannel mini-reactors incorporating hydrogen separating membrane. Multichannel mini-reactor shrinks the dimensions through which energy and reactants travel to their ...

At the heart of scientific computing and numerical analysis are linear algebra solvers. In scientific computing, the focus is on the partial differential equations (PDEs) that arise from computational fluid dynamics (CFD), climate modeling, astrophysics, and structural and heat analysis that cannot be solved analytically. Certain problem formulations lead to sparse matrices, in which the majority ...

ZONA Technology, Inc. (ZONA) proposes to develop an on-line flutter prediction tool using the parameter varying estimation (PVE) methodology, called the PVE Toolbox, to ensure the flight safety during the flight flutter test and to prevent the damage to the wind tunnel hardware from the structural failure of the flutter model during wind tunnel flutter test. This tool can be applied to rapidly ide ...

This proposal by Jansen's Aircraft Systems Controls, Inc. presents an innovative solution for Active Combustion Control.Relative to the state of the art, this concept has the ability to provide frequency modulation (greater than 1000[Hz]) in combination with high amplitude modulation (in excess of 30% flow) and can be adapted to a large range of fuel injector sizes. Existing state-of-the-art ...

The motivation of the proposed SBIR is to develop, demonstrate and commercialize a compact, low-mass, high output power (1-10 milliwatt), tunable source of CW THz radiation operating at room temperature. The source will be useful both as a narrow band frequency stable sources for driving heterodyne receivers at key frequencies between 1 and 5 THz (1.4, 1.9, 2.7, 4.7 etc..) or for laboratory source ...

In this SBIR project, AlphaSense, Inc. and the Carnegie Mellon University propose to develop a RF receiver front end based on CMOS-MEMS components for miniaturized digital EVA radio applications. In Phase I, we have proven the feasibility of implementing a compact, low power and high performance S band receiver front end based on CMOS- MEMS components. Specifically, we conducted link budget analys ...