Award Data

Based on the research and analysis conducted during Phase I, it was determined that it is feasible to detect, diagnose, predict and manage impending failures in a rotating electrical machine (e.g., aircraft generator) using a real-time, sensory-updating residual life distribution estimation technique. Furthermore, the methodology allows us to develop a prognostic capability for the electrical powe ...

Detection of weak oceanic currents by remote sensing means is an important task for many applications of significance to the Navy and the society at large. A promising way to remotely detect the currents is through variations of backscattering strength of electromagnetic waves scattered from ocean surface roughness modulated by the currents. In Phase 1 of this STTR project we demonstrated that, de ...

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 ...

Luna Innovations Incorporated proposes in this STTR Phase II project to continue development and validation of Luna's amplitude-dependent, nonlinear ultrasonic inspection technique applied to friction stir welded (FSW) components. The technique was successfully demonstrated in the Phase I project on samples made from aluminum-lithium alloy 2195. The proposed Phase II project will focus on refini ...

Although numerical analysis applications have proven to be effective and reasonably accurate, the effort required to develop the associated analysis models remains a challenging and time consuming task. While many meshing tools are currently available, decomposing and manipulating the design geometry and enhancing the topology for mesh construction are manual processes and place the heaviest dema ...

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 ...

The overall objective of this STTR effort is to evaluate and demonstrate the potential for well-designed, strategically-located synthetic jet actuators to provide improved aircraft safety by: (1) delaying wing stall and improving aircraft controllability at high angles of attack and (2) providing low-cost actuation redun-dancy to improve controllability in the event of a mechanical control surface ...

Our proposal and the Phase I work completed under it addressed these NASA-identified needs by providing software infrastructure that provides physical scientists a "plug-and-play" architecture in which they can insert their "physics kernels" and exploit very large existing code bases for the computer science aspects of the problem. In particular, our STTR product provides cutting-edge adaptive me ...

Structural state awareness can be vitally important to a wide variety of both commercial and military systems, including buildings, bridges, vehicles and advanced sensors. Equipment required to provide this telemetry has typically been large and heavy making it difficult to incorporate into the desired environment. The use of a strain and temperature sensing technique based in fiber optics can p ...