Award Data

To effectively use fuel cells in military and commercial applications, diesel fuel and JP-8 need to be reformed in a reliable and highly efficient reformer. Altex Technologies Corporation (Altex) and Pennsylvania State University (PSU) have identified the Compact and Efficient Logistic Fuel (CELF) Reformer that overcomes the fuel sulfur and carbon formation tendencies of logistic fuels and transfo ...

When systems such as Future Force Warrior (FFW) are fielded, the need for highly advanced user interface concepts increases. In the FFW program, there is a critical need for a nearly "hands-free" user interface that allows the soldier to work with automation tools within a head-mounted display (HMD), while maintaining both hands on his weapon. In Phase I of this effort, which was called Gaze-B ...

The intelligence community suffers from information overload due to a glut of information and a dearth of analysis. With restructuring of the intelligence community, and redirection of information flow to widen dissemination, the amount of information that must be analyzed is increasing rapidly. Analysts supporting Homeland Security must mine not just the usual information sources such as the FBI ...

Virtual training environments are becoming increasingly important to the U.S. Army for training warfighters as the Army transitions to Objective Force. However, in support of better simulation, the incorporation of haptics has lagged behind the simulation of visual and auditory cues. Reasons for this include the difficulty of simulating tactile information, limitations in hardware and software s ...

In this Phase II program, we will obtain new data sets in the CUBRC LENS shock tunnel facility that duplicate true flight conditions and can be used to improve the predictive capabilities of missile/plume CFD models in the 35-70 km altitude regime. Tests will systematically vary altitudes and Mach number and will address angle-of-attack effects. They will be performed with both a solid plume sim ...

Our proposal addresses the inclusion of a secondary smoke model into a modern CFD code that is widely used for plume simulations. This will permit high fidelity simulations of dynamic, missile exhaust plume flowfields that, under certain conditions, produce a condensation cloud that can obscure the electromagnetic signals utilized for guidance and targeting. The CRAFT CFDr Navier-Stokes code use ...

Stress-rupture life is a significant design issue for fiber reinforced composite pressure vessels subjected to long term pressurization. The considerable scatter in stress-rupture life exhibited by fiber reinforced composites, coupled with the lack of reliable life prediction methods, have led to the requirement for low operating pressures in relation to the design burst pressure. This leads to ...

Gun barrels in a harsh environment with repeated firing and resulting thermal cycling as in Afghanistan and Iraq, pose a significant threat to our soldiers when cracks emerge in the gun barrel possibly leading to barrel failure and/or explosion. The FBS, Inc. objective for Phase II work is the development of a completely autonomous ultrasonic guided wave technology for a real-time gun barrel damag ...

In order to destroy ballistic and cruise missile threats with chemical, biological, HE or nuclear warheads in hit-to-kill or shoot-to-kill scenarios by PAC-3 or THAAD like systems lethality enhancement is needed especially in emerging threat scenarios involving maneuvering targets. Highly energetic-reactive composites of several densities have been shown to increase damage by orders of magnitude ...

Geolocation in indoor and urban areas is an essential emerging technology to enhance situational/positional awareness capabilities of U.S. soldiers. Maintaining situational awareness in indoor and urban environments is difficult because buildings, walls and other obstacles obstruct RF propagation. Thus the key parameter for geolocation, the direct path propagation signal, is harder to detect. The ...