Award Data

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to operate seamlessly in both the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) and abroad, it will be crucial that they possess a sense-and-avoid (SAA) capability that can ensure safe operations among maneuvering, non-cooperative aircraft. Numerica Corporation, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, proposes to develop a set of algorithms to model the uncertaintie ...

Susceptibility to delamination is one of the major weaknesses of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). Knowledge of the resistance of composite to interlaminar fracture is essential for life cycle prediction analyses of structural components. The current test method for Mode I-interlaminar fracture toughness, the double cantilevered beam (DCB), is not satisfactory for thin CMC specimens because the co ...

Although advancements in CFD technology and high performance computing have proven to be effective and reasonably accurate in assessing the hydrodynamic performance of naval vessels, the effort required to develop associated analysis models remains a challenging and time consuming task. Decomposing and manipulating the design geometry for mesh construction, while capturing near-field and far-field ...

This STTR Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of novel biologically-inspired computational memory models for on-board exploitation of long-duration sensor data streams to enable autonomous missions in unknown environments. The key innovation in this effort is a computationally and space-efficient computational memory model that is able to: i) handle long-duration dat ...

Vescent Photonics proposes to develop a compact laser system and integrate it with a cold-atom micro primary standard developed under the DARPA IMPACT program. In phase I we will investigate performance enhancements resulting from immobilizing the cold-atom sample with an optical lattice formed from an optical field whose wavelength is chosen to minimize the differential light shifts between the s ...

Integrally bladed rotors (IBR), also called blisks, are becoming increasingly common in the compressor and fan sections of modern turbine engines. The integration of the blades and disks into a single part has the advantages of reduced part count, reduced weight, increased reliability, and increased performance. However, a drawback of this technology is that individual blades cannot be easily repl ...

The overall objective of the Phase I and Phase II proposed effort is to design and demonstrate the ability to develop a high-speed shock tolerant composite flywheel energy storage system (FESS) using a low cost manufacturing process. The Phase I tradeoff design studies will assess the FESS size, operating speeds and material requirements needed to achieve the energy density levels and charge/disch ...

A unique type of air lubricated thrust bearing called a Wave Bearing is proposed to assist a rolling element bearing to carry the thrust load and to improve the bearing’s life when used in a micro gas turbine engine. The Wave Bearing technology will provide improved reliability, safety and life compared to rolling element bearings used alone, as well as to allow simplification of engine design a ...

We propose to conduct a feasibility study for utilizing broadband sampling of the diffusive noise field in a dynamic environment. In ambient noise studies, the ability to resolve a wavefield is proportional to its time-bandwidth (TB) product. In a dynamic environment such as in the atmosphere or ocean, the nature of the impinging wave field is changing rapidly so that only short time segments can ...

Electromagnetic launchers or rail guns are a key component of the Navy’s all-electric ship of the future, but they lack the durability required for repeated firings. TDA Research and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) are developing a tough, durable and conductive refractory metal coating that will protect the copper alloy conductors (rails) from the extreme heat and wear conditions inside the ...