Award Data

Higher inlet temperatures for turbine engines will provide significant benefits in fuel efficiency and performance for both military and commercial air vehicles. To accomplish this goal, new generation thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) with superiorreliability and durability will be needed. The currently-used zirconia-based TBCs do not adequately meet thermal conductivity requirements and they suf ...

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman spectroscopy are developing rapidly for chemical and biochemical sensing applications. There is an urgent need for high-sensitivity detectors so as to minimize sample quantity and maximize detection range from the source. In most field-deployable spectrometers, a photo-detector array is used for analyzing the spectral contents. The sensitivitie ...

This proposal addresses topic A07-124 ``Geospatial Database Generation Agents'' aiming at developing the technology to populate the geometry and attribution of geospatial databases with information mined from open source text, tables, and non-spatial databases on the Web. As our solution, we propose to build the GeoEngine, a ``vertical-search'' system for finding and ranking information about geos ...

The primary objective of CU Aerospace's Phase II work will be to experimentally characterize the ElectriCOIL flow using advanced diagnostics and to demonstrate lasing of this electrically assisted chemical iodine laser. CU Aerospace (CUA) and theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) believe that it is possible to construct a highly efficient electric generation scheme to provide the pr ...

A nearly universal trend in modern technology is the continued integration of systems, and their associated devices, on decreasingly smaller scales. While this has led to personal computers that offer more functionality and faster computational speeds, ithas also spurred the development of hybrid optoelectronic systems on a chip (SOCs). Currently, such SOCs are receiving significant interest fro ...

High-performance HgCdTe infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPAs) sensing in the long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) region and advanced structures such as multi-color detectors required for future generation IRFPAs are highly desirable for various Air Forceapplications. Such device architectures require not only reliable extrinsic n- and p-type doping of HgCdTe but also the precise control of composition ...

The goal of this project is to reduce the cooling requirements of MWIR HgCdTe infrared photon detectors and improve detector performance at present-day cryogenic operating temperatures. During Phase I, we designed innovative Pn-N detectors and established the feasibility of growing the required HgCdTe-based structures by molecular beam epitaxy. Using this approach in a collaborative effort with th ...

In this proposal we exploit the remote sensing attributes of ultrasound to conduct heat transfer studies on hypersonic propulsion components and vehicle materials. In the Phase I program, we have successfully demonstrated the viability of the ultrasonic method to measure surface temperature, local temperature and heat flux. In a series of laboratory studies, we have remotely measured surface temp ...

A compact heavy fueled engine is progressing from a desire to a requirement. A miniature Meyer Nutating Disk Engine provides the means of propulsion that the military has been seeking. An unmanned air vehicle (UAV) will have capabilities that are not currently possible with present internal combustion engines. The miniature high power density Meyer Nutating Disk Engine designed during the Phase I ...

Our tool will combine a new urban growth model with a web-based content management system to create an environment where planners can leverage an urban growth model to review proposed infrastructure changes, new public policies, and other forms of interventions that may effective urban development patterns. Results of the urban growth model can be used to assess costs associated with new urban de ...