Licensing and Partnering Opportunities
Featured Technologies
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NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has developed three state-of-the art technologies available for licensing to enhance friction stir welding (FSW). These new FSW technologies provide novel techniques for producing high-strength joints that are virtually free of defects. Separately or in combination, these innovations can be used by numerous commercial industries to significantly reduce tool and production costs, enhance worker safety, increase production rates, and improve weld quality.
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As NASA prepares for a return to the Moon and creation of a lunar outpost, it is developing the tools needed to build and repair space-based structures. Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) are working on a solid state welding device that uses ultrasonically heated stir welding. This process reduces the loads needed by conventional friction stir welding and is the foundation of future handheld solid state welding for NASA. NASA is seeking partner companies interested in jointly developing its ultrasonic stir process for various welding applications.
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NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is offering a state-of-the-art distance
measurement system, with micron accuracy, at ranges of up to 20 meters from the target. Such
measurement accuracy is accomplished by employing changes in laser Fresnel patterns, which
are extraordinarily sensitive to changes in distance. Differences in patterns are compared with
known pattern/distance relationships, allowing the range to be uniquely determined. The technology
could be especially useful in a variety of aerospace, industrial, and consumer systems where
verification of a target’s dimensional consistency can only be performed through remote, noncontact
methods.
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NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is developing an improved joining technology called thermal stir welding that improves upon fusion welding and friction stir welding. This new technology enables a superior joining method by allowing manufacturers to join dissimilar materials and to weld at high rates. NASA’s technology offers users an exciting alternative to current state-of-the-art fusion and friction stir welding technologies.
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Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center developed a new thin-film deposition process that creates a permanent bond between the film and substrate. This patented process, known as vacuum arc vapor deposition (VAVD), can be performed using a traditional vacuum chamber or a hand-held vacuum device developed by NASA. Applications are numerous, including a new method for creating integrated circuits, such as smart tags, radio frequency identification devices (RFID), and memory devices.
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Description/Abstract |
| Testing Nuclear Reactors with Radio-Frequency-Driven Dielectric Heaters |
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Innovators at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have patented a prototype of a heating element for non-nuclear thermal testing of nuclear-fission reactor cores for spacecraft. The heater element consists of a hollow, cylindrical dielectric element with a single conductor along its centerline, to be inserted in reactors in place of nuclear fuel rods. A radio frequency (RF) signal typically in the 2,000-5,000-volt range and up to 50 megahertz is to be applied to the central conductor to heat the dielectric material. The main advantage of this system is that the wiring will be simpler to fabricate and easier to install than the wiring needed for electrical-resistance heating. In some applications, it may be possible to eliminate all heater wiring and beam the RF heating power into the dielectric rods from external antennas.
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| Evaluating Single Ball Bearings and Lubricants in Oscillating Rotary Motion |
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Scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have patented a desk-sized apparatus for testing single ball bearings and their lubricants in an oscillating rotary motion. The apparatus provides for a greater degree of automation and operation under a wider and a more realistic range of test conditions than previous testing mechanisms. The device tests loads from 100 to 50,000 pounds, resisting torques up to 30,000 pounds/inch, oscillating rotation to 280 degrees, and cyclic rates from 0 to 6 Hz. Various environmental conditions can be simulated with some additional components but without any major modifications. These include temperatures from -320°F to 1000°F, relative humidity levels from 0 to 100 percent, and various space-simulated environments. The apparatus measures the applied load, the resisting torque, and the angle of rotation, and calculates the coefficient of friction in real time. A microprocessor-based data acquisition and control system controls the test from start to finish and then calculates, displays, and stores test information.
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| Fabricating Bragg Gratings on Optical Fibers |
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Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have patented an apparatus and method for forming Bragg gratings on optical fibers. Marshall’s technology combines the stability of a phase mask with the flexibility of a two-beam interferometric method and provides large wavelength tenability using a single phase mask. Precise control of the Bragg wavelength is accomplished by a one-dimension translation of the optical fiber, relative to the lens. Translation of one millimeter of optical fiber corresponds to a 5-10 nanometer change in Bragg wavelength. Chirped gratings may be created by rotating the fiber in two dimensions.
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