Award Data

High Energy Physics experiments utilize highly specialized detector systems that are dimensionally stable and have very low mass to reduce the detected particle scattering. Current detector systems make significant use of adhesives in assembling the components of the system. In order to meet future requirements, radiation-tolerant adhesives with high thermal conductivity are needed; a room tempera ...

The U.S. Department of Energy is developing nuclear fusion as a source of abundant, renewable energy for the nation. Many fusion reactor designs have been put forward using high temperature superconductors. High temperature superconductors offer not only the potential for achieving higher fields and near- continuous operation in fusion magnets, as well as for decreasing the reactor size and simpli ...

Carbon-fiber-reinforced-composites have excellent strength-to-weight ratio and represent the most promising next generation of light-weight materials that can replace currently used aluminum alloys and steel in mainstream auto-industry. However, their production cost is almost 10 times higher than that of the metals, mainly due to long production cycle time and difficulty in recycling and reuse. B ...

The Department of Energy has aggressive targets to reduce vehicle weight in order to improve fuel economy which requires addressing all components including castings while maintaining affordability. Casting imperfections are a limitation to achieving this. Our proposal is to provide a method to reduce casting imperfections in ductile iron using the lost foam casting process such that it can be use ...

Manufactured and modular homes have roughly 8% of the US population living in them and make up 11% of the new, single-family home starts each year. This fraction is even higher on rural and tribal lands. The industry reported a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.86% in 2018. And yet, solar penetration in this market is negligible, mostly for financing qualification factors. Phase3 Photovoltai ...

A tensile based PV tracking system is proposed. Substantial groundwork has been completed at Sandia National Laboratories in collaboration with Skysun, LLC through a Department of Energy Small Business Voucher, (SBV). The ground work evaluated the tracking system which has applications to both CSP, CPV and PV. The SBV program explored tensile based ganged heliostat design for use in Power Tower ap ...

The main problem to be focused on in Phases I & II will be to develop fundamental improvements to the covetic conversion process based on known issues and principles of physics. The goal is to fabricate a laboratory-scale continuous flow reactor. Thus, the project will support the U.S. Department of Energy - Advanced Manufacturing Office’s need for an efficient and effective conversion process b ...

Electric grids are quickly evolving with advanced monitoring and information management as well as communication through connected devices. Although the number of devices and sensors coming online is increasing exponentially, the same vulnerabilities remain in data integrity at the source and during transport. The overall objectives of this proposal is to design a system to improve grid reliabilit ...

When nuclear reactor performance drops below desired energy levels, the radioactive waste must be properly disposed. Until deep geological disposal sites are identified for very long-term storage of this waste (1000’s of years), interim storage methods must be used for much longer than initially intended (~100 years). With hundreds of dry storage canisters approaching or already exceeding their ...

Inefficiencies are introduced when each sensor system at a CO2 storage/enhanced oil recovery (EOR) site uses (near) replicate computing hardware but only operates a small fraction of the time. Additional inefficiencies occur when each of these sensor systems’ raw data must be transmitted to a cloud or other computing device to provide analysis and after-the-fact operational insights. Raw data fr ...