Award Data

NATURAL GAS REPRESENTS 20% OF THE PRIMARY ENERGY RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES AND ACCOUNTS FOR ALMOST HALF THE ENERGY CONSUMED FOR RESIDENTIAL HEATING. 22% OF THE NATURAL GAS RESERVES IN THIS NATION ARE NOT USABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN MORE THAN 4 PPM OF HYDROGEN SULFIDE (H2S). THIS CORRESPONDS TO 19 TRILLION CUBIC FEET OF THE KNOWN RESERVES. IT IS PROJECTED THAT 80 TRILLION CUBIC FEET OF THE ...

Curing of glass or carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites using high energy electron beams (HEEB) offers impressive advantages for the fabrication of structural components in commercial and military vehicles. HEEB curing greatly reduces the time to cross-link the polymer matrix, while increasing composite tensile strength. The process simultaneously cures the matrix, adhesives and paints ...

ACCURATE CONTROL OF THE MOLD INTERIOR SURFACE TEMPERATURE IS CRITICAL FOR QUALITY PRODUCTION OF PLASTIC PARTS: CURRENTLY, MOST OF THE INJECTION MOLDING MACHINES USE OPEN LOOP CONTROL WITHOUT ANY DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF THE MOLD SURFACE TEMPERATURE. THE CONTROL VARIABLES ARE WATER TEMPERATURE AND VALVE SETTINGS FOR THE COOLING/HEATING WATER THAT IS CIRCULATED THROUGH THE MOLD. CLOSED LOOP SYSTEMS WIT ...

Future NASA space missions call for unprecedented levels of precision and reliability. Space Structures like other engineering systems, will suffer from unexpected failures and environmental disturbances. Although a large number of control subsystems are used to nullify or ameliorate the effects of such events, a health monitoring and supervisory control system is required to constantly monitor th ...

A modern military fighter, such as an F-16, carries a multitude of different external store configurations through its design envelope. For certain configuration, flutter or limit cycle oscillations (LCO) restrict the maximum airspeed or the weapon release. As new weapons are introduced into the aircraft's inventory, radical changes may occur in the aircraft structural dynamics to thepoint of pote ...

FABRICATION OF METAL MATRIX COMPOSITES (MMC) REQUIRES THE USE OF SOPHISTICATED MANUFACTURING PROCESSES. ONE SUCH PROCESS IS HOT ISOSTATIC PRESSING (HIP) WHICH IS BECOMING A KEY TECHNOLOGY FOR CONSOLIDATING MMC AIRFRAME STRUCTURAL PANELS FOR ADVANCED AIRCRAFT. THE OBJECTIVE IS TO DEVELOP A HIERARCHICAL TWO-LEVEL ADAPTIVE OPTIMIZING CONTROLLER USING TECHNIQUES OF MODERN CONTROL THEORY, SYSTEM IDEN ...

The purpose is to assess the feasibility of developing a speech synthesis-by-rule system based on a new method for controlling formant synthesizers such as KLSYN88. The new method uses a small set (about 10) of high-level (HL) parameters which, in conjunction with calculated aerodynamic quantities, are mapped into values for the much larger set of KLSYN88 parameters. Previous research has shown th ...

High spatial resolution imagery from geo-stationary orbit places uncompromising demands on spacecraft stabilization and optical system thermal stability. GEO requires + 8.80 pointing FOR, 1.25 urad IFOV (10's of urad accuracy) and < 1 urad (rms) jitter at ~ 10 Hz rate. Prior solutions have combined complex and costly ACS/IMU/Stellar control of spacecraft jitter with detector oversampling and image ...

THIS PROPOSAL INVESTIGATES AN EXTENDED LINE-OF-SIGHT RADIO TECHNIQUE FOR LOW-COST DATA AND VIDEO LINKING OF RURAL ORGANIZATIONS AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. EFFECTIVE RURAL WIDEBAND COMMUNICATIONS ARE OFTEN HAMPERED BY THE DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING RIGHT-OF-WAY FOR CABLES AND/OR BY THE COST OF LEASED LINES OR SATELLITE CHANNELS. DIRECT RADIO LINKS WOULD BE ATTRACTIVE DUE TO THEIR NON-INTRUSIVE NATURE, P ...

An innovative annular combustor concept has demonstrated superior performance while achieving very low lean blowout fuel to air ratio and providing a major reduction in NOx emissions. The design utilizes bulk swirl and is based on a Variable Residence Time (VRT) concept which allows large fuel particles adequate time to completely burn in the circumferentially mixed primary zone. High durability o ...