Award Data

A Shortfall in marine fisheries production is driving the development of aquaculture technologies on many fronts. Recirculating systems are regarded as critical components of many development schemes. However, interest and use of recirculating systems for production of marine organisms have lagged behind freshwater applications. A floating bead filter which is corrosion resistant (no metal parts), ...

We will develop technology, termed a Ruggedized Wind Measurement System (RWMS), to measure directly extreme winds with high space and time resolution, focusing on the winds that occur beneath hurricanes at land fall. This development effort will include design, fabrication of two prototype RWMS units, and a series of proof-of-concept demonstrations in strong mountain-induced downslope and severe t ...

CNC machine tools continue to be a critical part of manufacturing; yet, a majority of the users still do not have a comprehension of how the systems function internal to the control system. With the current capability and cost benefits of personal computers and multimedia tools, the opportunity to create an educational tool to display the inner workings of the CNC system is feasible. This proposal ...

THE U.S. WEATHER SERVICE PRESENTLY USES A "TIPPING BUCKET" RAIN GAUGE FOR MEASURING RAIN ACCUMULATION. THIS DEVICE IS SENSITIVE TO WIND AND MOTION (AS ON BUOYS), CANNOT MEASURE RAIN RATE, AND REQUIRES FREQUENT MAINTENANCE, BECAUSE OF MOVING PARTS. AN ALTERNATIVE DEVICE IS BEING PROPOSED, WHICH INCORPORATES A RIGID, RESONANT TUBE, CLOSED AT THE TOP BY AN ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC TRANSDUCER, AND AT THE BOTT ...

Dia-Tool proposes herein a new manufacturing machine that will combine the processing steps of shaping the indenter and the measurement of the resulting cone into a single automated Diamond Indenter Finishing Machine. The images of the edges of the indenter cone are digitized through an imaging array and directly stored in computer memory. The indenter cone images are then transformed by image ana ...

The program objective is to investigate the feasibility of using a very high frequency (VHF) [70 MHz] plasma technique to produce high efficiency a-SiGe:H solar cells at relatively high deposition rates. Using the VHF technique, high quality a-SiGe:H material is expected due to enhanced low energy ion bombardment of the growing film surface which has been found to be beneficial to the growth of th ...

The near-field scanning optical microscope can supply information on the shape and electrical properties of surfaces with nanometer resolution. The quantitative interpretation of images is difficult because of the difficulty of electromagnetic field solutions in the near-field limit. We propose to supply software to aid in this analysis. The finite-element programs generate two and three-dimension ...

In the conduction of benchmark combustion experiments, a fuel spray nozzle that produces a steady-well-defined spray is needed. This fuel spray, of known properties, is a boundary condition for the atomization, mixing, and combustion which results throughout the combustor volume. Present spray nozzles use fluid turbulence, which is chaotic, to drive the spray formation. Because the turbulence ampl ...

THIS WORK IS TO DEVELOP A METHOD TO IMPROVE THE ABILITY OF THE USNRC TO EVALUATE THE OPERATIONAL SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE OF OCCURANCES AT NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. PERHAPS THE AREA OF GREATEST SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE IS HUMAN PERFORMANCE, BUT THE TECHNIQUES USED BY NRC DO NOT EVALUATE HUMAN PERFORMANCE IN ANY SYSTEMIC WAY. THE WORK IS PROPOSED TO BE PERFORMED IN THREE STAGES, AND BUILDS ON METHODS THAT HAVE B ...

A growing number of fire fighters are suffering third degree burns; this has led to questions about the adequacy of thermal protective performance (TPP) measurements for protective clothing. A new heat flux sensor, whose response approximates that of skin, will be developed to provide better measurements of heat transfer in TPP tests. This sensor will be used with nonlinear parameter estimation an ...