Award Data

High-temperature polymer matrix composites (PMCs) are desired for the aggressive environments encountered in many aerospace and military applications. These have required new blends of materials properties in the composite fiber and matrix. As polyimide resins have been improved, the thermo-oxidative stability (TOS) of the carbon fibers typically used as reinforcements have become a limiting fac ...

The expanding use of composites in shipboard applications is driving the development of fire-resistant composite structures. However, despite significant efforts in improving the resins and cores of composite sandwich structures, passive fire protection (e.g., insulation) is still required. Currently, the Navy uses glass fiber or mineral wool insulation panels that are mechanically fastened to t ...

The Navy has qualified a visible light-initiated resin system for spot repair and corrosion control on ballast tanks. This system, developed by Spectra Group Limited, cures in a very short period of time under visible light illumination to yield the patch and corrosion control coating. The major difficulty with this system is the unwieldy size and weight of the lamp housing and power supply. Ad ...

Applied Physical Sciences Corp. (APS) proposes the Phase II development of an Acoustic Intensity Localization System (AILS). AILS utilizes a vector hydrophone to measure the latitude-longitude offset to an acoustic projector attached to surface buoy whose position is known via GPS. A major advantage of the AILS concept is that it can operate with extreme precision even at relatively low frequenc ...

The US Navy's new DD(X) destroyer, currently under design, is expected to serve not only as an independent battlespace resource but also as a hub of a network of environmental sensors and sonar platforms. In this role, the DD(X) crew is responsible for deciding the distribution of assets needed to best accomplish the objectives of the current mission. Due to the environmental sensitivity of mult ...

An advanced vector hydrophone towed array is proposed for surface ship torpedo defense applications. Vector hydrophone promise to provide much-needed array gain in aperture-constrained systems. The additional gain results in significant increases in detection ranges and/or decreases in false alarm rates. A physics-based vector sensor array simulator will be developed in a modular architecture. ...

A critical design feature for a towed mine countermeasure platform is low drag. In this STTR we propose to integrate an efficient acoustic source within a low drag body to perform influence mine sweeps behind an unmanned surface vehicle. To develop the optimum system a trade-study is proposed during Phase I to examine electronically-powered transducers and novel hydroacoustic concepts. The tran ...

The Navy requires an architecture for acquiring and storing 3-Dimensional obstacle data. An extension of the Terrain Awareness Warning System (eTAWS), the obstacle database must store man-made objects such as buildings, bridges, towers, overpasses, and wires. The system must be able to generate obstacle database data from a number of sources including synthetic aperture radar (SAR), stereo/multi ...

A primary mission of Naval air assets is to detect and destroy enemy ground targets. In order to accomplish this mission, the weapon systems must be able to detect and classify potential targets to determine which are valid targets. Traditional combat identification has been performed using all weather sensors and processing algorithms designed specifically for such sensor data. Newer electro-opti ...

To advance work done on heavy fuel diesel engine in Phase I to further improve performance while at the same time increasing its power 5 fold.improve performance while at the same time increasing its power 5 fold.