Award Data

NASA space exploration projects require avionic systems, components, and controllers that are capable of operating in the extreme temperature and radiation environments of deep space. To design wide-temperature radiation-hardened (rad-hard) electronics and predict characteristics and reliability in space, advanced models and simulation tools are required at multiple levels. Analog and mixed-signal ...

CFDRC and TRLA are proposing to develop, design, and test a mass-optimized isotensoid inflatable structure that makes maximum utilization of materials in providing tailored stiffness and rigidity for hypersonic entry vehicles. The proposed inflatable structure is a hybrid isotensoid pressure restraint employing an impervious cloth-reinforced barrier structure enveloped by an integrated array of hi ...

Current methods for detecting toxicity in food are labor intensive, time-consuming and require access to sophisticated laboratory equipment. To overcome these limitations we propose to develop a novel, microfluidics yeast-based sensor system for detection of Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TICs) in food. Robust yeast cell wires and membrane patches will be assembled on-demand and in-situ from suspensi ...

Current modeling of Lunar and Martian soil erosion and debris transport caused by rocket plume impingement lacks essential physics from the peculiar granular characteristics of highly irregular regolith particles. Current granular mechanics models are based on mono-disperse spherical particles empiricism unsuitable for capturing the poly-disperse irregularly shaped grain mechanics. CFDRC and the U ...

Molecular biology techniques allow generating combinatorial libraries of large number of enzyme variants. However, there is currently no technology available for screening the enzyme libraries for identifying variants with improved activity for the substrate. We propose to develop a novel, microfluidic, high-throughput platform for determining kinetic constants of enzyme variants and identifying v ...

The design of future Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) requires detailed understanding of unsteady flows around flexible lifting surfaces with strong interactions between separation and transition at low Reynolds numbers. Since flexure often involves large deformations exceeding the Kolmogorov scale by orders-of-magnitude, methods employing moving and deforming computational grids may require excessive re ...

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are being considered for a wide range of roles from search-and-rescue in urban environments, military surveillance and reconnaissance, to planetary exploration. To accomplish these complex missions, a good understanding of complex flow physics involved in the flow separation and transition around the flexible lifting surface of MAV is crucial. In Phase I, an in-house, ad ...

Mobile devices can provide many benefits to the warfighter, from health monitoring to navigation assistance. Since these uses will involve critical data in transit and at rest on the mobile device, securing the device is imperative. Existing techniques require too much overhead for mobile devices. This project proposes to build MSPECS, Mobile Storage Protection & Efficient Communication Security, ...

The goal of this project is to develop a computational algorithm/model to detect subtle changes in neurobiology of sleep-wake cycle due to mild TBI. We aim to quantify early enough the subtle changes in sleep-wake disorder by correlating objective sleep quality measurements as model inputs to the “Injury Leonardo” framework that

Including radiative heat transfer in full-vehicle thermal analysis simulations results in nonlinear equations with coefficient matrices that are dense, poorly conditioned, and difficult to solve. Further, calculating and storing view factors¯needed for surface-to-surface radiative fluxes¯is computationally prohibitive on fine grids. In the proposed SBIR project, CFDRC will develop, validate and ...