Award Data

Aircraft are susceptible to ballistic and other projectile damage. They are particularly vulnerable to damage to their fuel tanks. As a result, most jet fighters and all U.S. military rotary wing aircraft employ some type of seal-sealing fuel tank technology. Unfortunately, the existing self-sealing fuel tank technologies are heavy and offer unreliable reproducibility in the self-sealing layer res ...

Self-sealing fuel tanks play an important role in protecting equipment and personnel by minimizing secondary threats from a ballistic penetration of the fuel tank. If a fuel tank is pierced by a projectile, the self-sealing bladder or coating uses a combination of elastomeric recovery in addition to fuel absorption and swelling to close the penetration and quickly stop a fuel leak. In this manner, ...

SIF and non-SIF based approaches are used to study the damage/crack growth involving complex crack shapes under complicated loading conditions. In the SIF based approach, we use alternating, non-hypersingular Symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method (SGBEM)-Finite Element Method (FEM) formulation to study both 3D and 2D crack growth situations. This technique enables study of surface or embedded ...

Seawater lubricated propulsor (i.e., stern tube) bearings are one of the most important bearings aboard a ship. The performance and life of these bearings directly affects the vessel's operational capabilities, life cycle costs, and overall availability. In a single shaft vessel such as an Ohio class SSBN, any failure of this bearing is extremely problematic. In certain applications such as ...

Luna Innovations teamed with University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (UMD) is developing novel auxetic textile technology to provide improved protection for military soldiers. American soldiers are exposed to significant risk of injury and death from gun shots and blast from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Whereas heavy protective armor exists, it is very bulky leading to thermal discomfort, a ...

In common terminology, chaos refers to a state of randomness or unpredictability. Chaos has a different meaning in physics and mathematics. In physics, chaos is a structured but irregularly patterned behavior displaying an extraordinary sensitivity to initial conditions. Work done by the principals of the proposal has proven that logic elements can be built with chaotic elements and can replicate ...

Thermal barrier coating systems that incorporate enhanced protection to CMAS induced delaminations while still retaining excellent thermal protection properties and high thermal cycle lifetimes are desired for next generation gas turbine engines. In this work, DVTI will develop advanced CMAS protection methodologies having novel compositions and architectures and as well as processing approaches f ...

Energetic materials possess long standing issues related to the balance of sensitivity and performance. A fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationship of these materials at the molecular level is the key to designing the next generation of high energy density munitions while achieving IM compliance. Organic synthesis chemists and materials scientists at Luna Innovations have te ...

Chalcogenide glass fibers are extensively used for delivery of mid-infrared (2 to 5 micron) laser wavelengths. They are needed for development of next-generation directed infrared countermeasure (DIRCM) systems. These new systems will have a reduction of both weight and size allowing their installation in vehicle and aircraft with stringent weight and size requirements. These fibers have industria ...

The Global Information Grid (GIG) has access to massive amounts of data from a vast number of sensors and sources. Extracting information from this quantity of sensor data is a significant challenge. Sensor data is often large, which taxes limited-bandwidth GIG interconnections. Current approaches rely almost entirely on end-user analytics, which is inefficient in that it requires raw data to reac ...