Award Data

The goal of the proposed effort is to use selective laser melting (SLM, an additive manufacturing technique) to manufacture a hot fire-capable, water-cooled spool piece that features an advanced regenerative cooling technique that combines high heat flux performance with low pressure drop. SLM enables us to "print" the spool piece in days, despite the complexity of the regenerative liner's inheren ...

Thorough understanding of aircraft airframe and engine noise mechanisms and the subsequent acoustic propagation to the farfield is necessary to develop and evaluate noise mitigation concepts. Therefore, continued assessment and development of advanced prediction methodologies and tools is essential. Despite significant progress made in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in past several decades, so ...

Improvements to solar cell efficiency that is consistent with low cost, high volume fabrication techniques are critical for future NASA space missions. In this project, we propose a novel, ultra-thin (UT), Si photovoltaic cell technology that combines enhanced light trapping (LT) and absorption due to nanostructured surfaces, separation of photogenerated carriers by carrier selective contacts (C ...

NASA's Road Maps for both Launch and In Space Propulsion call for the development of non-toxic, monopropellant reaction control systems to replace current state-of-art hydrazine. The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle capsule with twelve 160 pound force (lbf) hydrazine monopropellant thrusters and the Orion Service Module with eight 100lbf NTO/MMH auxiliary propulsion thrusters are obvious insertio ...

The overall goal of the project is to develop reliable reduced order modeling technologies to automatically generate nonlinear, parameter-varying (PV), aeroservoelastic (ASE) reduced-order models (ROMs) for aerostructural sensing and control. The Phase I effort will focus on developing several key engines, including parameter-varying aerodynamic ROMs (AeroROM), structural dynamics ROM, as well as ...

Innovative low cost, lightweight, durable structural concepts that feature simple robust designs, efficient packaging, and assembly are critical to the development of pressurized inflatable systems for NASA future space explorations. Advanced development of high-temperature resistant fibrous material concepts that do not require parasitic thermal protection systems is essential to meet these goals ...

Innovative, low cost high performance technologies are critical to the affordability of future space missions. Carbon/carbon (C/C) composites have significant advantages over metallic solutions. However, C/C composites are generally known to have high costs and protracted lead times. Recent efforts by ATK Aerospace Group and Plasma Processes have focused on increasing capability of 2D C/C, while ...

In October 2011, NASA initiated the Nuclear Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (NCPS) program to evaluate the feasibility and affordability of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP). A critical aspect of the program is to develop a robust, stable nuclear fuel. One of the nuclear fuel configurations currently being evaluated is a cermet-based material comprised of uranium dioxide (UO2) particles encased in a t ...

Despite the rapid commercialization of additive manufacturing technology such as selective laser melting, SLM, there are gaps in process modeling and material property prediction that contribute to slow and costly process qualification and product certification. To address these gaps, CFDRC and our partner Dr. Kevin Chou, University of Alabama, will develop multiple computationally efficient, high ...

Innovative, reliable, low-power, and low-noise electronics that can operate over a wide temperature range and high radiation are critical for future NASA missions. This project will design, develop, and demonstrate novel Radiation Hardened By Design (RHBD) analog/mixed-signal and RF integrated circuits (ICs) implemented in the latest, best-in-class silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology, for o ...