Award Data

A number of modern technologies utilize unique properties of highly non-equilibrium plasmas produced by electric discharges in molecular gases. Electron kinetics and vibrationally excited molecules define key chemical reactions in these plasmas. The goal of this project is to utilize the non-local nature of electron kinetics to improve the performance of various plasma devices under pulsed power c ...

Static stability is a major challenge for modern augmentors that feature close-coupled fuel injection/flameholders operating at low pressures and high inlet velocities, inlet temperatures and vitiation levels. Reduced dilatation and baroclinic vorticity effects at augmentor conditions cause large scale von Karman vortices to dominate the blowout event, in contrast to conventional bluffbody shear l ...

Morphing technology enables aerospace vehicles to achieve a broader range of operational modes. Computational aeroelastic and design analysis tools of these vehicles must be able to handle arbitrarily large deformations and shape changes. Innovative Volume of Solid technology is proposed to cast structure/body-dynamics equations in an Eulerian reference frame, preserving the order of accuracy of ...

Higher efficiency solar cells are needed to reduce solar-array mass, volume, and cost. In this project we propose to develop: (i) a concept of the novel quantum dot superlattice (QDS) solar cells, which are estimated to be more efficient and radiation tolerant than conventional multi-junction solar cells, (ii) new computational tools for the quantum-dot nanostructure optimization for the specific ...

This Phase I proposal will test a UV-B light inducible system in tobacco to produce exceptionally large amounts of protein. There are three principal components to the system: 1) a tightly regulated, UV-B inducible promoter fused to a geminivirus replication associated protein (Rep) coding region, 2) a geminivirus-derived vector that is rapidly amplified by the Rep protein to produce very high y ...

This Phase I effort identifies and analyzes a variety of antennas that can be used to mitigate standing-wave effects for pulsed and/or CW sub-millimeter-wave and THz imaging spectrometers independent of their technology (e.g. mm-wave vector network analyzers vs. fast-pulse time-domain THz systems). A close collaboration with Prof. Susan Hagness, who is an expert in computational electromagnetics a ...

Starsys, Inc. (Boulder, CO) specializes in the development and commercialization of cover systems for space applications, including non-sticking, low-out-gassing seal technologies. Under an on-going Phase I STTR with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Starsys is developing an all-metal, Knife Edge/Indium Gland seal technology that provides a promising solution to seal sticking and out-gassing issue ...

This effort will develop the power, communication and launch vehicle (LV) interface systems of a parasitic "drone" satellite to be used in close proximity with a host satellite. The power system will harvest energy from the side lobes of the host satellite's microwave transmissions. The communication system will transfer data with the host through that same microwave frequency, negating the need ...

Under this program, Radiance will develop software for generating geometrically and topologically accurate urban terrain models using implicit methods.

The military’s needs for soldier portable power are growing rapidly, and the only way to address this power need today is through batteries. Fuel cell power systems offer the potential of greatly reduced weight to support the soldier’s power needs, but fuel cell power systems today are only poorly optimized. To enable optimization of the fuel cell power systems for given user-specified power ...