Award Data

Biodiesel produced from microalgae has been identified as a potential source of affordable renewable fuel. This project addresses one aspect of the algal biodiesel production chain: development of low-cost, high-efficiency algal biomass harvest and dewatering technology. The approach involves the development and verification of system models of the entire algae-to-biodiesel production chain. These ...

xxxIn-situ fiber placement is able to offer a wide and robust processing approach that is well suited for many aerospace structures. Flat, single curvature and large radius complex curvature parts can be effectively handled with the current in-situ techniques. However, there are limitations associated with this process. The use of a rigid metallic consolidation applicator is routinely used in t ...

Commonly, composite rotor blade spars are fabricated by hand layups or other non-optimized, not fully automated procedures. These methods are labor intensive and require many de-bulking steps, making them expensive. The results are often inconsistent due to the nature of work done by hand. In our process, continuous graphite fiber reinforced thermoset prepreg tape will be used in conjunction wi ...

Increased performance and reduced cost structures, is the direction many aerospace companies work toward. Our objective in Phase I is to demonstrate our automated in-situ fiber placement processing technology can provide low cost manufacturing methods with thermoplastic composites while maintaining structural integrity, increased performance and address issues such as corrosion and impact resista ...

Optimize process to meet the specifications and challenges associated with the UH-1 tail boom. This will entail performing testing and evaluation of the factors deemed most relevant. This could include, but is not limited to material property testing, tooling design, tooling trials, in-situ process modifications, labor and fabrication cost analysis. Some of the specific topics that possibly pre ...

We propose to develop a fiber-based, high power, narrow linewidth, and tunable THz source to implement a novel THz spectroscopy system by leveraging our proprietary fiber laser technology. This proposed high power fiber-based THz source will be generated by using a nonlinear crystal based on difference-frequency generation (DFG) pumped by high power pulsed fiber lasers in MOPA with high repetition ...

In this proposal, we propose to demonstrate and build a widely tunable, low phase noise, narrow linewidth, single frequency fiber laser by developing an innovative Er/Yb-co-doped polarization maintaining (PM) single mode fiber. Such a fiber laser is needed for advanced fiber optical towed array sonar systems. In Phase I, we will design and fabricate this new fiber, demonstrate fixed wavelength low ...

The Department of Energy has identified a need for a single-polarization, mode-locked, high-power, 2-micron fiber laser for an advanced laser electron accelerator. The 2-micron laser wavelength would allow for both larger accelerator dimensions and the acceleration of more charge, compared to the 0.8 micron Ti:Sapphire laser. Another advantage of the 2-micron wavelength is the possibility of using ...

Thulium doped fiber laser near 2 micron is of great interest because of the potential possibility of combining high efficiency, high output power, and retina safety together. This proposal is for the development of new Tm-doped glass fiber for efficient high power 2ƒnmicron fiber laser capable of generating an output power of up to thousands watts. The doping concentration of the proposed glass f ...

Advanced Acoustic Concepts (AAC) will develop a reliable, validated, and fully documented system for digitally recording ambient soundscapes and resynthesize the desired soundscape for binaural presentation to human listeners via headphones. The system will take advantage of the established acoustical signal processing technology of AAC and the state-of-the-art psychoacoustics research and audio r ...