Award Data

THIS EFFORT WILL ENHANCE THE CAPABILITY OF THE AIR FORCE PARABOLIZED NAVIER STOKES CODE (AFWAL PNS CODE) TO PREDICT SKIN FRICTION AND HEAT TRANSFER TO HIGH SPEED FLIGHT VEHICLES. THE CURRENT PREDICTION TECHNIQUES REQUIRE EXTREMELY ACCURATE CALCULATIONS OF VELOCITY AND TEMPERATURE IN THE VICINITY OF THE WALL. THE EFFORT HERE WILL REPLACE THIS PROCEDURE BY USING INTEGRAL MOMENTUM AND ENERGY EQUATION ...

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 ...

DNA microarray technology, in combination with statistical and predictive modeling tools, could be used to evaluate thousands of genes against distinct gene expression patterns induced by chemical/biological agents to provide early identification and speed therapeutic intervention. The overall objective of this Phase II effort is to leverage existing public domain resources and commercial tools t ...

Obtaining high quality, intact RNA from cells is an ubiquitous need in the pursuit of space biology. Our overall objective is to develop and commercialize a microfluidics based miniaturized platform (MED-RNA) that can fully automate the complex process of RNA isolation. Starting from harvested whole mammalian cells in a culture medium, MED-RNA will lyse, capture, and isolate RNA content for later ...

Radiation shielding simulations showed that epoxy loaded with 10-70% polyethylene would be an excellent shielding material against GCRs and SEPs. Milling produced an elemental boron coating on the polyethylene particles suitable for protecting against low energy neutrons. For up to 30 volume percent particle loading of the composite there was the near random distribution of particles needed to p ...

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 ...

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IS A NEW CONCEPT FOR IMPROVED FIRE DETECTION SYSTEMS FOR LARGE, HIGH CEILING, HIGH VOLUME FACILITIES SUCH AS THE ORBITER PROCESSING FACILITY. EMPHASIS IS PLACED ON SYSTEMS WHICH ARE ECONOMICAL, HIGHLY RELIABLE, HAVE RAPID RESPONSE TIMES, AND MINIMIZE FALSE ALARMS. THE ADVANCED DESIGN CONCEPT ASSESSED INCLUDES MULTISPECTRAL SENSORS AND THE CROSS CORRELATION OF SENSOR S ...

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 ...

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 Gasdynamic Mirror (GDM) thruster is an electric propulsion device, without electrodes, that will magnetically confine a plasma with such density and temperature as to make the ion-ion collision mean free path much shorter than its length, but the macroscopic time scale is smaller than the characteristic time for electron-ion equilibrium. So, the electrons and ions have different temperatures a ...