Award Data

ABSTRACT: Under this feasibility study, we will investigate innovative methods for characterizing particulate emissions with a high degree of specificity to nonvolatile soot. Currently, no single instrument is available that can provide complete characterization of soot emissions. Instrumentation for reliable detection and characterization of nonvolatile particulate matter to obtain mass concentr ...

This effort proposes to design, build, and demonstrate a new instrument for icing research and flight safety capable of discriminating liquid water from ice while simultaneously measuring the diameter, velocity, and temperature of droplets or the velocity and size for ice crystals. From these individual particle characteristics the total liquid water content (LWC) and the total water content (TWC) ...

ABSTRACT:There is no single method available today that can reliably measure soot particle mass concentrations, number concentrations, PM specific surface area, and particle size distributions, especially with specificity to soot (black carbon, elemental carbon). It has been demonstrated that laser induced incandescence (LII) methods can reliably measure soot volume fraction, soot primary particle ...

Mitigation of threats posed by transportation and storage of hazardous chemicals or defeat of targets containing biological and chemical agents requires basic investigations to characterize aerosol formation and dispersion. Advanced laser-based instrumentation are proposed that will be used to characterize the aerosol and gas phase dispersion of chemicals during an accidental or explosive release. ...

Fuel contamination can be problematic to thermal engine operation, potentially causing engine failure, which may result in the loss of equipment and/or people. The in-line monitoring system designed by our team is based on scattering and imaging methods, and can detect particulate matter and condensed water in the fuel. We propose a refinement of this system to improve detection and sizing reliabi ...

Hypersonic missile and glider development have become of paramount importance and has accelerated as a result of recent announcements regarding deployments by other countries. With flight speeds as high as Mach 10 to 27, atmospheric particulate including water droplets, snow, ice particles, graupel, etc. can impart severe damage to these vehicles with the potential of initiating failure in flight. ...

Hypersonic missile and glider development have become of paramount importance and has accelerated as a result of recent announcements regarding deployments by other countries. With flight speeds as high as Mach 10 to 27, atmospheric particulate including water droplets, snow, ice particles, graupel, etc. can impart severe damage to these vehicles with the potential of initiating failure in flight. ...

This proposed effort addresses the need for accurate and reliable cloud droplet size distribution measurements with a sufficient data rate to characterize spatial variations in cloud formations. Currently used instrumentation for airborne measurements of clouds have been found to have limitations in terms of accuracy for both cloud droplet size and liquid water content (LWC) measurements. In addit ...

Radiometric and cloud microphysical properties in boundary layer clouds is of importance in advancing our knowledge on how these properties regulate Earth's moisture and energy budgets and, hence, climate. The representation of clouds in even the most sophisticated climate models remains a challenge and, as a result, cloud properties represent the largest source of error in our estimates of climat ...

THE ANALYSIS OF AEROBALLISTIC RANGE DATA IS A TEDIOUS AND TECHNICALLY CHALLENGING TASK. THE SOPHISTICATED ANALYSIS PROCEDURES AND REQUIRED SOFTWARE (COMPUTER PROGRAMS) HAVE BEEN REFINED EXTENSIVELY DURING THE PAST FIFTEEN TO TWENTY YEARS WITH THE ADDITION OF THE SIX-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM CODES EMPLOYING THE MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD METHOD. THE REQUIRED PROFICIENCY TAKES BETWEEN THREE AND FIVE YEARS UNDER TH ...