Award Data

The program addresses a central issue of developing rad-hard high power / high power density power supplies for interceptor components, specifically meeting the MDA need for new cost-effective Hi-Rel supply technology that can support NGI component higher power needs and can support legacy missile (power processor) upgrades. Centered around rad-hard ASIC technology, these power supplies will provi ...

Recent developments with the maturation and characterization of MAX phase materials indicate that a handful of these materials would be suitable for the heat produced by third stage rocket motors (TSRM). The majority of investigations have focused on alumina forming ‘211’ MAX phase systems that form an adherent oxide scale. However, tantalum carbide forming MAX phase materials offer an alterna ...

The advent of hypersonic attacks is pushing the current limits of the United States’ anti-missile defense system, Aegis. In the time required by Aegis to launch a counter attack, a hypersonic threat would already have flown such that an interceptor missile could not catch up. To resolve this challenge, Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) is collaborating with The Pennsylvania State University (P ...

There are currently no low-cost, long-life, space-quality cryocoolers capable of being produced for $500,000 each at a production rate of 50/year. Long-life space cryocoolers typically cost several million dollars each or more, due in part to requirements and interfaces that can vary from program to program. Tactical military (avionics) cryocoolers cost much less and are produced in large quantity ...

The proposed program will result in a novel design for a Hi-Rel, rad-hard low voltage power supply that can operate off space bus as to provide on-board power conversion for processors such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Based on QorTek’s recent introduction of the custom ASIC (QT-IC-R-1101-E) rad-hard controller/modulator chip the novel dc-dc converter will be very high efficiency a ...

Narrow line width fiber lasers have great potential for high-power directed energy applications. The beams of multiple fibers can be combined using spectral or coherent methods for scaling to high power levels. To successfully achieve goals of multi-kW fiber laser system scaling, accurate methods are needed to predict the performance of individual fibers and how their performance is affected by fi ...

Material models utilized by hydrocode programs (EPIC, Velodyne) require dynamic material properties and strengths as input. Due to the scarcity of useable material databases, many times these properties are inferred by calibrating the hydrocode model to experimental results. The calibration process involves tuning the input parameters until the hydrocode results agree with the observed behavior. T ...

ExOne successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using additive manufacturing to produce TZM refractory alloys at full theoretical density for hypersonic thermal protection / management / structures and met all of the Phase I research objectives. The process was developed beginning with a thorough powder feedstock characterization, followed by printing process parameter development, and finally ...

The Phase I program developed and tested several energetic compositions. These were compared to two baseline compositions, such as a double-base propellant and B/KNO3 with promising results. The comparisons were made through laboratory tests such as a)bomb calorimetry (in O2 and Ar) in terms of exothermicity per unit mass and volume, b)reaction rate (rise time) to a maximum temperature, c)pressure ...

Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) exhibit a damage mechanism known as “shear-plugging” when impacted by a hypervelocity projectile. Test methods to extract strain-rate dependent strength data relevant to shear-plugging of composite materials do not exist. Therefore, Materials Research & Design, Inc. (MR&D) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) propose to develop innovative test methods for th ...