Award Data

The current methodology for testing the penetration resistance of textile materials to various chemical agents has a number of drawbacks, including significant uncertainties in the resulting data, inefficiency and expense, risk to test personnel, and limited range of test conditions. The objective of the proposed work is to apply unique computer models for textiles with accompanying experimental ...

Effective collective protection fabrics must have a reliable closure system. During our Phase I Work Plan, Sigma-K began developing a Hermetic Textile Closure Hardware (HATCH) system. The HATCH combines both a magnetic and geometric self locking mechanism that will provide a hermetic seal when closed. Our current Phase I successes include developing self closing samples that can provide a hermetic ...

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used as an analysis tool to help the designer gain greater understanding of the fluid flow phenomena involved in the components being designed. The next step in the design process is to modify the design to improve the components performance, typically performed manually by the designer in a trial and error fashion. The innovations proposed herein will provide ...

Supercritical air at cryogenic temperature is an attractive source of breathing air because of its very high density and low pressure. However, heat leak into the cryogenic tank causes the stored air to expand and vent, thus limiting the storage life of a charged system. We propose to develop a storage system for supercritical air packs that provides cryogenic cooling that will enable long-term ...

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine currently being developed at NASA Johnson is an attractive technology for minimizing transit time and crew harm during future space exploration missions. One of the critical challenges in developing a flight engine is thermal management of the high-temperature, superconducting electromagnets used to constrain and accelerate the pl ...

The goal of this proposal is to develop a new method to create Non-Rotationally Symmetric (NRS) surfaces that overcomes the limitations of the current techniques and is fast, accurate and inexpensive. Diamond turning (DT) has revolutionized the fabrication of lightweight optical surfaces for defense and science applications such as forward-looking infrared radar and infrared spectrometers. It ha ...

Lightweight, high-temperature radiators are needed for future, high-efficiency power conversion systems for Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP). Creare has developed flexible radiators that are extremely lightweight, stowable in small volumes, and deployable with small forces, but are limited by materials to temperatures below 350 K. These novel radiators incorporate integral micrometeorite protect ...

Field emission electric propulsion (FEEP) thrusters have gained considerable attention for spacecrafts disturbance compensation because of excellent characteristics. The application of current FEEP has been slow in developing mainly caused by high specific power, which limit the milli-Newton thruster development due to insufficient onboard power. Dramatic field improvement from nanometer carbon ...

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