Award Data

State-of-the-art additive manufacturing technologies for metal parts have evolved primarily around powder metallurgy and fusion welding-based processes. These processing methodologies yield parts with inferior mechanical and physical properties as compared to wrought metal of the same composition. Additionally, the production rates for even the fastest processes are relatively low, the part enve ...

NASA's long range goals of reducing fuel consumption by 30% and increasing fuel efficiency by 35% can be partially accomplished through increasing the operation temperatures of gas turbine engines. The advent of advanced alloys, coatings, cooling technologies and ceramic components has created the potential for significant increases in the hot section of these engines; however, these advances wil ...

The proposed Sanders Aerospace ModelMaker (AMM) system provides an innovative rapid prototyping method of fabricating aerospace wind tunnel test models that dramatically increases instrumentation effectiveness with reduced complexity, cost and construction time. The AMM uses an in-situ layered deposition process to build ceramic test models that withstand high temperatures and have fully integrate ...

The specific proposed innovation is a compact, fluid-to-fluid heat exchanger that is fault tolerant because the working fluids cannot come into contact even if there are large internal leaks. Manned spacecraft typically use water-based, secondary coolant loops to isolate the crew from toxic or asphyxiating fluids (such as ammonia or freon) in the central thermal bus. The innovation is a fabricatio ...

The primary goal of this proposed work is to develop a long wavelength infrared (LWIR) colloidal quantum dot (CQD)-based focal plane array (FPA) and show its feasibility when used in a camera system and a hyperspectral imaging system. Phase I results cumulated in the first-ever synthesis of photoresponsive LWIR CQDs and CQD-based photodetectors at the single device level operating at room temperat ...

Chemical, biological, or toxin attacks in military and civilian settings are a serious and growing concern. Standard first aid for exposure to some chemical warfare agents and toxins includes the immediate administration of relevant antidotes using an autoinjector. When an attack occurs, pre-filled autoinjectors must be immediately available and thus highly portable, and they must be suitable fo ...

The proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons continues to pose a threat to U.S. national security. The threat to armed forces can be reduced by early detection of deleterious agents prior to any human contact. The probability of usingsuch weapons by a hostile force increases as they become more prevalent. This further emphasizes the need for field deployable systems that are c ...

THE OVERALL CYCLE EFFICIENCY (HENCE, INPUT POWER REQUIREMENTS) OF REVERSE-BRAYTON CRYOCOOLERS FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS IS HIGHLY SENSITIVE TO THE THERMAL EFFECTIVENESS OF THE HEAT EXCHANGERS. APPLICATIONS FOR THESE CRYOCOOLERS IN SPACE DICTATE THAT THESE HEAT EXCHANGERS BE AS SMALL AND LIGHT AS POSSIBLE. TO DATE, ONLYHEAT EXCHANGERS EMPLOYING ORGANIC MATERIALS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE THE HIGH THER ...

Modern aircraft gas turbine engines utilize highly loaded airfoils in both the compressor and turbine to maximize performance while minimizing weight, cost, and complexity. However, high airfoil loading increases the likelihood of flow separation at lower mass flow rates. Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma actuators have been shown to be a very promising technique for compressor stall con ...

Fault Management (FM) is critical to mission operations and particularly so for complex instruments – such as those used for aircraft and spacecraft. FM software and methodologies, however, too often have nagging limitations that restrict utility, and research and development continues to grapple relative to advancements in the complex systems they monitor. Modern spacecraft, for example, may hav ...