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Briefs Materials
Conductive Polymeric Nanocomposite Materials
AFRL scientists have developed a method for uniformly dispersing carbon nanofibers throughout polymeric materials to increase their conductivity. Engineers will be able to employ the resulting...
Briefs Materials
Composite Material Fire Safety Training Course
AFRL scientists and engineers, working cooperatively with experts from academia and the firefighting community, have developed a Composite Material Fire Safety training program designed to improve...
Briefs Sensors/Data Acquisition
Automated Material Deposition Chamber
AFRL materials scientists have acquired an automated deposition chamber (see figure on next page) that enables them to simultaneously or sequentially deposit solid-lubricant coatings onto target objectives...
Briefs Software
Computational Model of a Plasma Actuator
Controlling subsonic aerodynamic flow through the use of plasma actuators is an active area of research in both the Air Force (AF) and the general scientific community. A typical plasma actuator consists...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
AFRL Finding Ways to Decrease Unmanned Air Vehicle Costs
In support of the Aeronautical Systems Center's (ASC) Global Hawk Systems Group, AFRL has undertaken a program to study manufacturing tolerances for laminar flow on aircraft wings. On the...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Cyberspace Security via Quantum Encryption
Perfect information- theoretical security requires that the meaning of an encrypted message transmitted from point A to point B be statistically independent of the ciphertext in which that message is...
Briefs Software
Unified Flow Solver
A variety of gas flow problems are characterized by the presence of rarefied and continuum domains. In a rarefied domain, the mean free path of gas molecules is comparable to (or larger than) a characteristic scale of the...
Briefs Information Technology
A Concept for Information Extraction From Remote Wireless Sensor Networks
Recent advances in the development of microsensors, microprocessors, information fusion algorithms, and ad hoc networking have led to increasingly capable wireless sensor...
Briefs Software
Rapid Model Fabrication for Responsive Aerodynamic Experimental Research
Technicians machine traditional metal wind tunnel models in a process that can span months. Although these models are highly precise, the meticulously slow manufacturing...
Briefs Materials
Geopolymers
The use of ceramics in an ancient culture is one measure of that society's overall technical sophistication. Combining the study of ancient ceramics with modern science and technology has led to the creation of new ceramics with...
Briefs Mechanical & Fluid Systems
AFRL Supports Desert Hawk Program
AFRL aeronautical engineers collaborated with the Electronic Systems Center's (ESC) Force Protection Program Office, Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB), Massachusetts, to conduct an in-house effort assessing the...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Collapsing and Closing Unmanned Air Vehicle Swarms
AFRL researchers are exploring an adaptive and reconfigurable unmanned air vehicle (UAV) swarm configuration known as "collapsing and closing UAV swarms." This approach to developing UAV swarms...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Eddy Current Inspection System
AFRL manufacturing technology engineers, working with personnel from the 76th Maintenance Wing's Software and Propulsion Maintenance Groups at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (OC-ALC) and Wyle Laboratories...
Briefs Materials
Super-High-Strength Aluminum Alloy
AFRL researchers developed a super-high-strength aluminum alloy that engineers can use to improve the capability and performance of aerospace components—cryogenic rocket engine components, in particular....
Briefs Weapons Systems
Recent Advances in Insensitive Munitions
AFRL scientists from the High Explosives Research and Development facility successfully developed, demonstrated, and transitioned a next-generation melt-castable explosive formulation. The new...
Briefs Materials
Composites Affordability Initiative
AFRL and Boeing have developed an innovative structural inspection technique for testing bonded structures. This technique provides materials engineers a first-time, validated, nondestructive capability to...
Briefs Materials
Dielectric Coolants
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the Department of Defense's affordable next-generation strike aircraft designed to meet the needs of the Air Force (AF), Navy, Marines, and US allies. Currently in development by Lockheed...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Low-Cost Transmit/Receive Module for Satellite Control and Communications
A multidisciplinary team led by AFRL scientists is developing a geodesic dome phased-array antenna (GDPAA) for a proposed future Air Force (AF) technology demonstration.1...
Briefs Electronics & Computers
The Next Frontier of Networking—The Airborne Network
It is the next frontier of networking—a frontier where communication nodes may move at Mach speeds, wireless line of sight covers hundreds of miles, and weather affects communications...
Briefs Information Technology
Military Worth Analysis of New Concept Weapons
Weapon systems analysts traditionally conduct military worth analysis (MWA) to evaluate the warfighter payoff resulting either from the development and implementation of new assets or from the...
Briefs Information Technology
Developing Condition-Based Maintenance
Like any manufacturing equipment, semiconductor fabrication systems have a finite lifetime. Technicians normally perform maintenance on these hardware systems according to preset schedules and regardless...
Briefs Materials
Design of Lightweight and Durable Composite Structures
In the field of engineering design, "factors of safety" are derivatives of inadequate knowledge and therefore are a necessary, but costly, element of engineering design. Designing...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Monazite Deformation Twinning Research
AFRL scientists have significantly advanced the understanding of a phenomenon called deformation twinning, a major materials deformation mechanism that is particularly important at low temperatures and...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Dynamic Cavity Formation Imaging
When an Air Force bomber drops a penetrating munition, what happens as the warhead travels underground to the target? AFRL researchers at the Advanced Warhead Experimentation Facility (AWEF) recently captured...
Briefs Automotive
AFRL Teams With Indy Racing League® for Neck Protection
The bulletlike, open-wheel Indy racing cars hurtle around oval tracks at breakneck velocities, often approaching speeds of 220 mph or higher. While a crash at this speed is a violent,...
Briefs Medical
Scientists Create Optically Equivalent Synthetic Human Tissue
Lasers are an integral part of the modern battlefield, used for applications as diverse as point-to-point communications and ballistic missile defense. Their widespread use increases...
Briefs Information Technology
Response Surface Mapping Technique Aids Warfighters
When weaponeering a target, military planners pinpoint a detonation location that will result in the desired damage to the entire target, or even a particular area within the target. The...
Briefs Photonics/Optics
Surface-Emitting Laser Arrays Bring Light to the Top
Laser diodes are an integral part of everyday life, incorporated into commonplace items as diverse in function as laser pointers, fiber-optic communications systems, and DVD players....
Briefs Electronics & Computers
Weapon Data Link Demonstration
One of the US Air Force's goals is to reduce the time needed to strike time-sensitive targets, thus minimizing the adversary's perceived mobility advantage and leaving concealment as that enemy's primary defensive...
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