Award Data

Currently spark ignition (SI) engines dominate the light vehicle market, with over 80 million light vehicle engines made worldwide. These SI engines experience exceptionally poor efficiency at low to medium loads and speeds, making it difficult to meet new fuel efficiency standards expected to be imposed in many countries. Low wall temperatures at the end of the combustion process leads to emissio ...

High-temperature superconductors (HTS) are a vital technology for future particle accelerators, motors, generators and other electric power systems, fusion reactors, and many other medical and defense applications requiring high magnetic fields. One remaining limiting factor limiting to the implementation of HTS systems is the lack of adequate sensors to monitor the temperature and strain states o ...

Low-temperature plasmas generated by nanosecond electrical pulses, also referred to as transient plasmas, can be used to significantly improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions by enabling stable ignition in gasoline and natural gas engines in dilute conditions (e.g. applications such as methane capture, where methane is captured from landfills and burned to produce electricity) as well as thro ...

As computational density for high-performance computing and big-data services continues to scale, performance scalability of next generation computing systems is becoming increasingly constrained by limitations in memory access, power dissipation and chip packaging. The processor-memory communication bottleneck, a major challenge in current multicore processors due to limited pin-out and power bud ...

The discovery of large shale gas reserves in recent years has resulted in the reduction of natural gas price and a need to develop new applications for the available resource. Upgrading shale gas to liquid fuels which are more easily transportable and have greater economic value can result in significant benefits to the US. Coupled with this challenging problem the DOE has a goal of further develo ...

Technologies for terrestrial ecosystem management – in the area of precision agriculture and ecosystem restoration – have made significant advances recently for more sustainable practices by optimizing water, nutrients, and fertilizers Many of these technologies include monitoring and imaging of plants, soil, and crop harvest as well as their interactions, using in situ sensors, remote sensing ...

In situ detection of microbial activity in submerged soils and aquatic sediments can be labor intensive and technically difficult, especially in dynamic environments where data on microbial status is desired. Current approaches for estimating anaerobic microbial activity involve incubating soil/sediment samples. Sophisticated analytical techniques are currently used which are not convenient and so ...

Trabus Technologies (TRABUS), working with Louisiana State University (LSU), will develop a predictive analytics-based US Inland Waterways Voyage Planning Analysis tool to help vessel traffic managers, tow boat pilots, and river lock operators maximize transport logistic resources. This tool will use current and forecasted hydrographic, meteorological, lock status, and Marine Safety Information to ...

Electrical power is scarce at most offshore locations, so oceanographers design buoy systems to consume very little power in order to reduce the frequency of ship voyages to replace batteries. These expensive voyages can cost several tens of thousands of dollars per day. Solar and wind power can recharge batteries, but harvested power is limited and each source has shortcomings. Wave energy operat ...

Wind and solar electricity are gaining traction in the marketplace, but the electricity available from these sources is out of synch with demand Protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs) operating at intermediate temperatures (400 - 650°C) have enormous potential for electricity storage and delivery by reversible operation between electrolysis and fuel cell modes and therefore stand to addre ...