Award Data

Combustion stability is an important consideration in the design of liquid rocket engines. While fundamental modes of unstable operation in simple geometries are easily identified using analytical methods, recent times have seen these methods greatly expand in scope, applied in semi-numerical format to increasingly complex geometries and flow situations. Much remains to be explored in understandin ...

The growing complexity of future military systems demands the development of high-performance nonlinear control algorithms. The goal of this proposal is to develop a specially designed software/hardware architecture to enable real-time autonomous closed-loop control of nonlinear high-dimensional dynamical systems. Following the recent success of pseudospectral (PS) computational control methods in ...

The leakage of electromagnetic (EM) energy into air vehicles, and particularly into ordnance, poses a hazard that requires careful evaluation. Under current guidelines, such evaluations are primarily to be carried out through extensive testing of items under possible field conditions, a process that can be both time-consuming and costly. The scope of this STTR Phase I activity is to implement a h ...

The goal of the proposed research is to develop advanced computational tool for high-fidelity simulations of hypersonic non-equilibrium plasmas. Octree adaptive Cartesian mesh will be used for automatic mesh generation and dynamic mesh adaptation to plasma properties, particularly important for hypersonic flows with strong shock waves, transient laminar and turbulent domains with large gradients o ...

A mathematical framework for detection and classification of weak, distributed patterns on computer networks is proposed. The framework will provide rigorous methods for understanding performance bounds and optimality of intrusion detection methods, while also providing concrete and implementable algorithms. The algorithms will find immediate application in cyber-security efforts, as well as mor ...

Using its novel carbon nanosheet technology, Luna Innovations will develop a Supercapacitor with the highest energy densities available in the microsecond to millisecond response times. Nanosheets are vertically aligned graphene sheets that can be grown on a wide variety of substrates without catalyst and have an open, accessible surface area that eliminate the resistance due to pores that cause ...

The demand for higher performance and rapid transition of new technologies into extreme performance has lead to the need for engineered materials and surface modification technologies. The present proposal is focused on finding a surface engineered solution that can withstand exceptionally harsh environments such as those found in supersonic ground test tracks or rail gun environments. This SBIR p ...

Prime Research and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte propose to devevelop space-variant nano-optical elements to integrate passive spectral and polarization filters directly into infrared focal plane arrays. This novel technology will enable multi-mode detection by allowing pixels to be uniquely tuned for wavelength and polarization across a focal plane array using a simple fabricatio ...

In miniature gas turbines for UAV applications, traditional bearings exhibit a typical lifetime of only 25 hours due to excessive axial loading. Mainstream proposes to use a passive, permanent magnet thrust bearing to alleviate this problem and increase service life to over 1000 hours. Since this type of bearing is non-contacting, it can operate at very high rotational speeds with minimal heat gen ...

The objective of this Phase I project is to evaluate the use of novel Laser Induced Surface Improvement (LISI) techniques to provide surface modification to substrate materials which will provide superior wear resistance in extreme conditions. The specific application of interest is the hypersonic metal-to-metal contact that occurs at high speed test track facilities that can and has lead to catas ...