Award Data

The particle accelerators and detectors needed for future high energy physics devices require magnetic fields higher than those that can be produced by the low-temperature superconductor (LTS) technologies used in present-day superconducting magnets (SCMs). High temperature superconductor (HTS) materials, however, have the potential to generate very high magnetic fields, offering a technological p ...

Major improvements in the electrical and thermal conductivity of metals used in conductors are needed to improve the energy efficiency and reliability of our national electrical power systems. These metals need to be stronger and more resistant to corrosion, oxidation and fatigue which reduce the reliability and lifespan of conductors and create high costs for maintenance, repair and replacement. ...

Most three-dimensional printing systems use a three-axis gantry configuration and build objects as a sequence of planar layers. Emerging robot based systems have the ability to work outside of this layered sequence and deposit material in more intricate patterns such as weaving or depositing on non-planar surfaces. The majority of software tools to produce paths target the layer by layer limitatio ...

Light olefins such as ethylene and propylene are very important high volume commodity chemicals with production value more than $200B. These are used as building blocks for many essential chemicals and products. A major portion of the capital and operating cost in olefin production is for the olefin-paraffin separation by cryogenic distillation, which is highly energy and capital intensive consumi ...

The use of non-native substrates for GaN-based devices leads to devices with high densities of defects stemming from misfit dislocation formation due to lattice mismatch and large values of wafer bow stemming from thermal mismatch. The latter is particularly problematic as one attempts to grow device films on large area substrates. The high defect densities give rise to degraded performance and re ...

Development of liquid transportation fuels from biomass is an essential part of diversifying the U.S. energy portfolio. Algae represents a promising next generation bioenergy source for producing energy from renewable sources because of the fast growth and high oil content of certain algae strains. However, because of very dilute concentrations of algae in the feed and consequently very large volu ...

A low cost compact modular pointofuse, ondemand production system for the reforming of currently abundant supplies of natural gas will be developed. A nonequilibrium dielectric barrier discharge system provides scalable capacity for reforming methane into valuable products such as acetylene, hydrogen and other related hydrocarbon molecules. The high power density and high average electron energies ...

Liquid metal cooled fission reactors are both moderated and cooled by a liquid metal solution. These reactors are typically very compact and they can be used in regular electric power production, for naval and space propulsion systems or in fission surface power systems for planetary exploration. Liquid metals in fusion reactors can be used in heat exchange, tritium breeder systems and in first wa ...

The goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of developing a ground station network capable of delivering real time space weather data to end users. Specifically, the proposed works seek to assess existing and future communications requirements for providing better than 15 minute latency (threshold objective) for transfer of data from NOAA space weather assets to the ground for distrib ...

In Phase I, Vadum will develop a signal processing module designed to fuse data from multiple heterogeneous, multi-tiered sensors, as well as asoftware prototype demonstrating the automation of the fusion process for presentation to a Brigade Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear(CBRN) analyst. The techniques developed will incorporate Chemical/Biological (CB) agent detection sensors, non-CB se ...