Award Data

The occurrence of combustion instability has long been a matter of serious concern in the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines due to the high rate of energy release in a confined volume in which energy losses are relatively small. Positive feedback between the acoustic waves and unsteady combustion could lead to the destruction of an engine in a fraction of a second. The situation is ...

A significant barrier to the insertion of ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials into advanced aircraft engines is their inherent lack of toughness under foreign object Damage (FOD) as well as post FOD. Our team will develop and demonstrate a physics-based model for FOD/post FOD in CMC’s. The model will incorporate physical mechanisms associated with impact for two different CMC systems: a) ma ...

High energy density capacitors are required for practical implementation of GW-class pulse power loads. In response to this need, TPL has established unique dielectric and capacitor capabilities. Revolutionary materials, designs and manufacturing process have been developed for power sources that have potential for an order of magnitude reduction in mass and volume relative to current commercial ...

Our team proposes to develop, test, and commercialize a Micro Air Vehicle Tether Recovery APparatus (MAVTRAP). This system operates by deploying an instrumented MAV capture device attached via a tether system from a mothership unmanned air vehicle (UAV). The instrumented MAV capture device contains an integrated avionics suite. Our team will determine and control the precise mother ship UAV loi ...

Based on our success in developing the world first commercial 100 micro Joule

Based on our success in developing the world first commercial high power femtosecond fiber laser system and our leading technology development in ultrashort pulsed fiber laser and nonlinear fiber optics, PolarOnyx proposes, for the first time, a compact all fiber based high power (>kW) mid-IR supercontinuum source (1-5 micron) to meet with the requirement of the AF solicitation AF09-BT01. The lase ...

Based on our success in developing the world first commercial 100 micro Joule fs fiber laser system and our leading technology development in ultrashort pulsed fiber laser, PolarOnyx and University of California at Davis proposes, for the first time, a fs-high power (100 W), high energy (>100 uJ) and high repetition rate (MHz) fiber laser microstructuring system to meet with the requirement of the ...

New material systems are required as a result of advanced performance criteria for the next generation destroyer program and other Navy ships. As a part of these requirements there is high demand for high strength structural composites. The objective of the STTR Phase II project is to develop high strength and light weight structural composites utilizing functionalized single-walled carbon nanotub ...

The proposed effort leverages the capabilities of data-driven and physics of failure (PoF) based prognostic techniques for electronic systems by combining them within a hybrid approach. Data-driven and PoF-based techniques both have shortcomings; combining them into a hybrid framework allows using their capabilities in a complementary fashion, and thereby providing a reliable way of prognostics an ...

The ever-decreasing size of the electronic microchips and the ever-increasing density of electronic components required to support future Air Force platforms are creating the problem of substantial localized heat generation that can impair component operation. State of the art thermal interface materials (TIMs), that are used to dissipate heat from the source to the spreader in a microchip, are se ...