Award Data

Radiation effects in microelectronic components are a significant concern for the reliability of DoD systems that operate at high altitudes or in outer space. Typical characterization efforts focus on macroscale degradation signatures from electrical measurements at device terminals. However, a comprehensive analysis of radiation-induced physical defects is not possible based solely on terminal me ...

Despite the tremendous benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) to our warfighters, uncertainty in fatigue life predictions have been a major roadblock for certifying metallic AM parts to fly. We are proposing a hybrid modeling/inspection approach to estimate fatigue life of AMed parts using damage tolerance analysis combined with inspections. The new developed tool is expected to provide certifica ...

An additive-manufacturing process will be developed for printing high-quality freeform inorganic gradient-index (GRIN) optical elements. Candidate nanocrystal materials including ZnS, ZrO, TiO2, PbSe, and rare-earth-doped metal oxides, will be synthesized and characterized. A process for inkjet-print depositing high-volume-percent loading density of binary, ternary, quaternary, etc., nanoparticle ...

Webbing is strong, woven material that is used to secure cargo as well as for safety equipment such as seat belts, harnesses, and parachute rigging. Due to its extensive use in Military applications, the strength of the webbing is a key component of equipment design, especially in the case of safety gear that protects soldiers, as lives may be dependent on the strength and proper performance of th ...

Sand particles ingested into aeroengines can impinge on components made of ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) and cause structural damage including long-term erosion. Experimental analysis of erosion typically focuses on the damage footprint and mass loss and is limited in the range of operating parameters that can be examined. Hence, high-fidelity modeling of the erosion process is essential to der ...

The uncertainty in predicting surface roughness and subsurface defects in as-built additively manufactured (AM) parts is hindering the wide utilization of AM for mission critical components that exhibit fatigue loading conditions due to the propagated uncertainly in crack initiation and propagation from surface defects. Thus, this work is focused on developing a new multiphysics toolset for predic ...

As the Navy continues to reduce manpower requirements associated with operating ever-increasing technologically complex systems, new methods that enable natural and intuitive interaction with 3D data are required to reduce overall operator workload and to enhance situational awareness. Operators who cannot quickly access and interpret data are prone to errors ranging from missing critical data dur ...

Fatigue life of parts produced by metal additive manufacturing is determined by the complex interaction of defects, surface properties, and material microstructure.  Each of these constituents is affected by the choice of processing parameters, as well as the feedstock, machine performance, etc.  In addition, stochastic events often contribute significantly to the fatigue life of individual samp ...

Pendar Technologies proposes to develop a QCL simulation tools that leverage machine learning to dramatically improve the speed of QCL device design. The innovative QCL design suite proposed will benefit from recent advances made by Pendar in bandstructure engineering, laser cavity design and thermal management at the chip and the package level.

A Quantum Cascade Laser's (QCL) core material is a series of nanometer scale layers of conduction band barrier and well materials designed to induce lasing electron energy levels. The key design feature of a QCL is the ability to repeat the laser core superlattice design to cascade electrons through the superlattice repetitions by repeated stimulated emission. Such designs are generally carefully ...