Award Data

A major concern with nuclear energy is the safe storage of the spent nuclear fuel before final disposal.A monitoring sensor located inside a storage cask to provide direct measurements of internal conditions is of particular interest to DOE.Conventional wireless sensors have inherent limitations because the stainless steel canister shields the RF signals from wireless sensors inside the canister t ...

In this SBIR Phase II project, AccuStrata, Inc.will continue its work to create a high-throughput integrated laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)/flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) system for the rapid, combinatorial discovery and optimization of heterogeneous catalysts.The proposal will build off the successes in Phase I by: • Creating an integrated LIBS/FSP system • Integrating controls for ...

Current thermal insulating materials in buildings have many shortcomings, such as a lack meaningful mechanical strength as well as potential health and environmental risks.Moreover, to be effective, they require invasive retrofits which entail a highupfront cost to consumers, which has created hurdles in meeting DOE efficiency objectives.Delignified wood with aligned cellulose nanofibers (nanowood ...

Every year, the global wind industry loses an estimated $100M or more to damage caused by lightning.A new blade coating will reduce the damage to wind turbine blades caused by lightning by promoting the formation of ionization channels over the surface of the turbine blades, providing a safe external path for lightning energy to reach ground and preventing damaging blade punctures.The coating cons ...

In grid modernization efforts it is necessary to leverage the extensive investments in existing/legacy infrastructure, extending its life, while allowing for a graceful transition to new and more efficient technologies to support the continued demands on the infrastructure and security.The goal of the Phase IIB effort is to allow legacy devices in IEC 60870 and IEC 61850 frameworks to enhance the ...

With development of shale gas fracking, large amounts of methane and ethane have now become available at low cost. With this low cost ethane it is desirable to convert low cost ethane to high value ethylene. Oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) for low cost conversion of ethane to ethylene is a potentially attractive route. ODH is an exothermic process for converting ethane to ethylene. By contrast pro ...

Accurate simulation of nuclear power plant behavior is necessary for both engineering and training applications. An engineering grade simulator, used for design, safety analysis and operations, is characterized by high fidelity, computational power, lack of real-time capability, and user non-interactive environment. By contrast, a training grade simulator, used for operator training and education, ...

Our goal in this SBIR project is to develop a lightweight, low-power, inexpensive hyperspectral spectro-polarimetric imaging sensor for wide area standoff detection of chemical agents. The imaging system will employ an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) that operates in the LWIR wavelength range. The sensor will have polarimetric imaging capabilities which, adds a valuable signature feature to im ...

Despite deep neural networks have demonstrated tremendous success in various commercial and DoD applications, they are susceptible to adversarial attacks with detrimental outcomes to the underlying applications. The generative adversarial network (GAN) provides a good way of defending against adversarial learning attacks, but it is faced with a practical challenge, as classical computers are not a ...

This effort will expand the universe of direct energy enhancers across a wider spectrum of RF parameters to produce optimal decontamination at even lower cost. During the course of the Phase II investigation proposed here, initial work will be carried out on the determination of the fundamental mechanism of decontamination of biological materials with an eye toward expanding applicability to chemi ...