Award Data

SiC power electronics are ideally suited for reducing the size and weight of power electronics systems that are used in wind power converters. Present power electronics systems require large transformers which operate a modest frequencies that prevents their use on top of the turbine tower. The electrical parasitics introduced by the interconnections between wind turbine and power conversion elect ...

Current commercial reactor fuel performance monitoring uses external power range monitors, and evaluates coolant water for contamination that would indicate failure of a fuel element. Estimates of the localized fission rates and temperature distributions within the reactor core are approximated using nuclear simulation codes. Real-time characterization of local in-core radiation field parameters w ...

Mikro Systems, Inc (Mikro) has a breakthrough manufacturing technology that can dramatically reduce the time and cost of designing, prototyping, and testing advanced high-temperature turbine components. The gas turbine industry needs rapid and cost effective prototyping methods to produce advanced high- temperature parts from application specific materials that can be used in hot test rigs and tes ...

NanoSonic has recently developed high strength-to-weight ratio Thoraeus Rubber composites that maintain radiation resistance and EMI shielding upon severe and repeated mechanicals strains. This state-of-the-art, flexible shielding material was designed as a bladder for space-based enclosures that required ultra-low air permeability, radiation tolerance, resistance to hydrogen (H2) embrittlement ...

High speed imaging of plasmas is limited to relatively short record lengths and is very expensive. Portions of the tradeoff space where slightly reduced spatial resolution allows gains in record length and reduced costs are poorly explored. HyperV Technologies Corp. proposes to construct a 100 pixel fiber coupled streak camera as a proof of concept towards an eventual goal of constructing a 100 ...

All high power target facilities and accelerators, especially the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), require magnetic field sensors to measure magnetic fields in various magnets employed at these facilities as well as in cyclotrons. The currently used and/or commercially available sensors show only limited radiation resistance and in general require replacement every 3-4 months, resulting in, ...

Foundational studies of desktop-bound technical computing users, referred to as the missing-middle of the high performance computing (HPC) market, have identified the lack of simple software, limited access to technical talent, and difficulty in estimating the return on investment (ROI) as critical challenges in the adoption of HPC among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The complexity a ...

The main obstacle Photovoltaic (PV) industry is facing at present is the higher cost of PV energy compared to that of fossil energy. While solar cell efficiencies continue to make incremental gains these improvements are so far insufficient to drive PV costs down to match that of fossil energy. Improved in-line diagnostics however, has the potential to significantly increase the productivity an ...

Modern gas turbines must operate at higher temperatures in order to achieve better fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. To achieve maximum performance, components must be made of Nickel super-alloys and must be cast as single crystals. Although single crystal casting yields have improved, they have not improved sufficiently to enable wide-spread use of single crystal super-alloys in industrial ga ...

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has reported that the wave energy resource available in the US has the potential to power over 100 million homes each year, and the DOE is currently developing an aggressive strategy to support its vision of providing 15% of our nations electricity needs from water power by 2030. However, in addition to survivability and impact issues, producing cost-competitive e ...