Award Data

As new commercial applications arise for supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power generation, and higher efficiencies are achieved through higher turbine inlet pressures and temperatures, the need to advance technologies on the component level becomes essential. Power cycles using sCO2 as the working fluid are gaining increasing interest as reductions in CO2 emissions from power plants are sought ...

The neutral density in magnetically confined fusion experiments is an important parameter, affecting plasma stability and confinement and providing fuel for the plasma. Despite this importance, few diagnostics exist to directly measure the neutral density. One diagnostic is two-photon absorption laser induced fluorescence (TALIF). Current TALIF systems rely on large, dye laser based systems to pro ...

Current hydropower facilities employ a variety of electrical and mechanical equipment that necessitate the use of lubricants to ensure efficient operation of said equipment. The lubricants, either oils or greases, aid in reducing friction, dissipating heat, prevent oxidation, and seal of water and debris from vital areas of the equipment. During operation, equipment may be submerged or otherwise c ...

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2017, the U.S. residential sector and the commercial sector used about 273 billion kilowatthours of electricity for lighting. This was about 10% of the total electricity consumed by both of these sectors and about 7% of total U.S. electricity consumption. Residential lighting consumption was about 129 billion kilowatthours or about 9% of ...

Scientists and engineers need robust and easy to implement software that enables them to more easily manage the creation of in situ data extracts, visualizations, and interactively steer their simulations. JMSI Inc d.b.a. Intelligent Light proposes to create “SCOREBOARD” - a new open source software offering consisting of a lightweight, flexible in situ library that performs limited computatio ...

Current agriculture and off-road equipment requires the use of lubricants to ensure efficient operation of integral hydraulic and gear driven systems. The lubricants, either oils or greases, aid in reducing friction, dissipating heat, prevent oxidation, and seal of water and debris from vital areas of the equipment. During operation, equipment may have slight leaks or suffer catastrophic failures ...

Most of the world's freshwater usage--as high as 70%--goes to agriculture. Unfortunately, in many of the country's major farming regions secure sources of agriculture water are threatened: freshwater aquifers are being over pumped, coastal saltwater intrusion is tainting freshwater supplies, agricultural run-off is dumping nitrates into the environment, and severe droughts are periodically ...

In this STTR Phase I program, Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) and Arizona State University (ASU) will develop a SiGeSn based light emitter device technology on Si, which will be a key ingredient for Si-based integrated photonics applications, such as in lab-on-a-chip integrated chemical and biological spectrometers for landers, astronaut health monitoring, front-end and back-end for re ...

New classes of aircraft, providing personal, on-demand mobility, are under development and are poised to revolutionize short-duration air travel. The impetus for this work comes from advances in electronics and controls, and increases in electric motor power densities. As these aircraft are integrated into the transportation system, they will encounter icing conditions that may challenge the des ...

A major innovative thrust in urban air mobility (UAM) is underway that will potentially transform how we travel by providing on-demand, affordable, quiet, and fast passenger-carrying operations in metropolitan areas. As cited in the NASA SBIR A1.06 topic solicitation, “Growth of UAM is dependent on affordable, low-noise VTOL configurations, which may be enabled by electric aircraft propulsion t ...