Award Data

The large number of tank cars that need to be manufactured, retrofitted or modified each year to meet the safety requirements of DOT-117 specifications demands a large manufacturing capacity for any candidate material, such as Composite Metal Foam (CMF), that is going to be used in their structures. Currently the CMF technology is scaled from lab size production to 1’ x 1’ panels production in ...

There is a persistent need to improve the inline inspection (ILI) technology to identify accidents before they occur. Circumferential cracks could be induced by land movement or extensive residual stress. ILI tools that can detect circumferential crack detection and measure bending stress are still lacking in the market due to limited research funding on this topic. PHMSA is preparing regulatory r ...

To address the passenger safety concerns related to the recent incidents of inadvertent railcar door opening, this SBIR project develops a low-cost Intelligent Door Operation System (IDOS).By installing small ultrasonic proximity sensors beneath side doors and linking them to the door control circuit, IDOS ensures that doors will not open unless their sensors detect the presence of a platform. The ...

Inadequate drainage is of concern to many construction sites, road embankments, retaining walls, dams and, for this proposal, railroad roadbeds. Soil stability and ability to withstand stress is affected by pore water pressure and soil moisture content but these quantities can be monitored by sensors. The specific needs of a roadway (or highway) installation is a pore pressure sensor capable of dy ...

Military Working Dogs (MWDs) provide a valuable asset to military troops, police, and other government agencies. In recent years, the increasing deployments of MWDs in different tactical environments make them encounter much higher risk from exposure to a range of hazardous chemicals, including chemical warfare agents (CWAs), toxic industrial chemicals (TICs), and narcotics. Since there is no prot ...

Organophosphorus chemical warfare nerve agents (OP-CWA) are attractive to terrorist groups and rogue states as an inexpensive and accessible technology for chemical warfare. OP-CWA and organophosphate pesticides cause severe neurological symptoms and death by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE); the resulting excess acetylcholine accumulates and overstimulates the human or animal bo ...

Railroad yards are in constant movement with potentially thousands of train cars moving over miles of track compressed into a limited area. The harsh environment presents many safety hazards for railroad workers who must move through this environment and perform assigned tasks. Job related injuries cost he railroads over $1 billion annually and from 2008 30.3% of those injuries occurred in the r ...

Railroad grade crossings remain one of the primary locations for fatal or near-fatal accidents involving rail vehicles. Multiple attempts to prevent such accidents by means such as signals and gates are severely hampered both by expense of installation and by the fact that many accidents are caused by vehicle drivers or pedestrians deliberately or through inattention ignoring or evading warnings ...

The preponderance of biosensors under development today rely on labeling reagents such as fluorescent, radioisotopic or enzymatic tags. As a result, the added complexity of these reagents and their incorporation into the detection system has resulted in designs that are difficult to implement or that require significant sample preparation steps before introduction into the detection instrument. ...

Current geopolitical strategies require effective warfare countermeasures to protect U.S. forces against biological and chemical threats. Today's molecular biology and immunological detection technologies cannot be used to produce automated biodetectors useable in the battlefield. New, improved detection technologies are needed to minimize the impact of chemical and biological weapons on Army per ...