Award Data

Environmental degradation of aerospace turbine components is a major concern for aircraft and power generation systems, and various surface treatments are utilized to extend the lifetimes of these critical components. This Phase II project is targeted toward extending the durability of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) on hot section turbine components. TBCs are highly susceptible to degradation b ...

Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) are emerging as mission-critical materials for a broad range of defense applications and among them, their utility for next-generation aero-turbine components are currently being pursued. SiC-based CMCs are leading candidates for this application due to their high strength, low density, and superior toughness at elevated temperatures. In this Phase I project, a new ...

High cost and poor environmental performance of CMCs are limiting their deployment in many defense applications. In particular, the JSF platform requires improved durability for a targeted CMC system which is already qualified and in production. Primary motivation for this Phase I effort is to reduce cost. CMCs, although known for their benefits of lightweight and better performance at elevated te ...

This Phase II.5 effort will further develop and mature the sealing technology relevant to JSF exhaust ceramic matrix composite (CMC) nozzle components. Significant concerns related to the poor durability of the CMC in the engine environment remain and this sealing technology, under Phase II, has demonstrated excellent capability to protect SiC-based CMCs in harsh environments. Under the Phase II.5 ...

This proposal addresses topic A07-124 ``Geospatial Database Generation Agents'' aiming at developing the technology to populate the geometry and attribution of geospatial databases with information mined from open source text, tables, and non-spatial databases on the Web. As our solution, we propose to build the GeoEngine, a ``vertical-search'' system for finding and ranking information about geos ...

Micro-Gas Chromatographs (micro-GC) have the potential of providing a fieldable device that could 1) identify chemical threats in a battlefield, 2) provide assessment of warfighter health status, chemical exposure, stress level, and hydration, but we need better detectors if this potential is to become a reality. The objective of the proposed work to develop a micro-flame ionization detector (mi ...

In addition to their ubiquitous abilities for navigation at small spatial scales, a host of animals migrate long distances through the open ocean or skies. The mechanisms underlying these powerful navigational abilities are slowly being decoded. This progress offers the opportunity to develop low cost navigational systems for use in future autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) designs. As future AUV ...

Multifunctional composite materials would alleviate longstanding problems in composite structures associated with multiple types of damage mechanisms such as mechanical/thermal fatigue, microcracking, and debonding. Self-healing polymers consist of a healing agent that is stored in microcapsules and released whenever cracking occurs in the polymer. The healing agent flows into the cracks and is ...

Rotorcraft are increasingly turning toward high-resolution Ka- through W-band radar sensors that can image terrain and obstructions but also see through the particulates that confound infrared and optical sensors, such as sand, ocean spray, and fog. As with any onboard sensor, designers must consider the antenna/platform interaction, and mature tools exist to address this type of problem. However ...

Physics-based modeling and simulation tools for predicting electromagnetic interference (EMI) and vulnerability (EMV) between RF systems are playing an increasingly important role in system level performance predictions. In order to accurately capture all of the complexity associated with RF systems on a modern military platform, very sophisticated multi-physics simulators using models of multiple ...