Award Data

Rocket plume impingement can cause significant damage and contaminate co-landing spacecraft and surrounding habitat structures during lunar landing operations. CFDRC and the University of Florida will develop an innovative simulation system for predicting surface erosion and debris transport caused by lunar surface rocket plume impingement. This simulation system combines 1) a unified continuum-ra ...

Long-term exposure to microgravity and radiation during space exploration can pose a critical threat to the health of a flight crew. Real-time monitoring of urine protein levels is an effective way to follow the onset and progress of many diseases and guide the prompt selection of proper therapy. The success of such diagnostic tasks, which is strongly desired for flight missions, critically depend ...

Accurate CFD modeling of fuel/oxidizer injection and combustion is needed to design and analyze liquid rocket engines. Currently, however, there is no mature modeling capability for liquid fuel/oxidizer injectors in LOCI-Chem, used by NASA and its contractors to analyze rocket engines. In this STTR, an innovative, high fidelity injection module will be developed that features the Level Set (LS) i ...

Intellectual Merit: This STTR project will develop novel engineered Clostridia strains for fermentation to economically produce butanol as a biofuel from sugars derived from starchy and lignocellulosic biomass. Butanol is an important industrial solvent and potentially a better transportation fuel than ethanol. Recent rising oil prices and limited petroleum resources have generated high interest i ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to apply the unique property of high-speed jets to adhere to nearby curved surfaces, with a turning radius much larger than the size of the jet - the so-called COANDA effect. The proposed research aims to take advantage of this effect to manipulate thermal spray jet stream and vector the stream such that the hot thermal gas stream ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of coating metal foils with a solid sorbent so that they act as a desulfurizing component for pre-treatment of sulfur-laden liquid fuels. The coated foils will be inserted into a small heat exchanger that acts as a platform unit for conversion of liquid fuels to hydrogen for fue ...

The Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project addresses the scale-up to kilogram quantities of a novel university laboratory solid-state method of synthesizing metal oxide and metal nanoparticles by mixing common chemical starting materials and baking the resulting precursor material at modest temperatures; and the dispersment of the loosely agglomerated particles for comm ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project addresses the need for novel catalytic systems for electrochemical energy conversion technologies, specifically polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, through an innovative bilayer electrocatalyst design and the ability to implement that design using a sophisiticated electrodeposition process. The project will demonstrate impro ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I research project will investigate the feasibility of improving the addressing speed of Plasma-sphere. Plasma-spheres are hollow transparent shells that encapsulate a selected pressurized gas. When a voltage is applied across the shell, the gas ionizes and glows. Plasma-spheres are applied to flexible, electrically addressable arrays to form Plasma-sp ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I proposal addresses key components for managing the liquid natural gas and hydrogen fuel supply economy. Transporting and storing cryogenic liquid fuels entails danger of fire and explosion. Since these fuel technologies are growing and acquiring increasing US strategic as well as worldwide importance, sensors and instrumentation to safely mana ...