U.S. Army DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory

An electrochemical cell (such as a battery) that provides, inter alia, improved cycling efficiencies, by utilizing an electrolyte and a plurality of electrodes (including at least one metal electrode) where the electrolyte includes one or more solvents, one or more salts, and one or more additives, and at least one of the additives is a heterocyclic compound.

Photonic annealing is used to treat electrically-conductive thermoplastic. The thermoplastic forms, partially or wholly, a part which may be formed by additive manufacturing, like fused filament fabrication (FFF). The photonic annealing improves part conductivity and also alter, enhance, or give rise to other material properties while taking significantly less time than other conventional post-process methods. For instance, the baseline conductivity of the electrically-conductive thermoplastic material may be on the order of 10 3 S/m or lower. After the photonic annealing, its conductivity may be raised to the order of 10 4 -10 5 S/m or more. This represents an improvement of 10-100× or even more of conductivity of the electrically-conductive thermoplastic compared to electrically-conductive thermoplastic prior to the photonic annealing.

A fin deployment apparatus for stowable fins that comprises a sub-caliber fin hub configured to be rotatably coupled to an aft portion of a projectile, the fin hub having a plurality of flat, planar exterior surface regions, each surface region having pivotably coupled thereto a respective set of fins. Each fin in a stowed position is disposed upon a respective exterior surface region of the fin hub and a respective exterior cavity or recess of the projectile. Each fin is urged toward a deployed position by a respective torsion spring, which operates to deploy the fin after the projectile has left the barrel or tube. The sub-caliber fin hub is further configured to be keyed to the aft portion of the projectile during storage and while within the bore of the barrel or tube in response to urging from a propellant, the fin hub when keyed thereto being rotatably locked with the projectile forebody

Methods, solutions and material systems for increasing the heat yield for a substance which reacts with water to produce hydrogen gas and heat are disclosed herein. The methods include providing a substance which reacts with water to produce hydrogen gas and heat, providing an aqueous solution comprising an oxidizer and an optional salt, and reacting the substance and the composition to generate hydrogen and heat.

A teetering rotor hub is described. The teetering rotor hub may be able to couple to multiple rotor blades and to a rotor. The teetering rotor hub may be associated with an aerial system. The teetering rotor hub may be able to rotate about a rotor spin axis of an associated motor. The teetering rotor hub may couple to the rotor or shaft. In some embodiments, the rotor hub may couple to a pair of rotor blades. The teetering rotor hub may be able to teeter along a second axis that is offset from the rotor spin axis, where the offset may be between zero and ninety degrees. By varying a speed signal provided to the rotor, the rotor blades coupled to the rotor hub may be moved in various ways to generate flapping motions that are able to control the direction of movement of the aerial system.

We disclose novel methods for infiltrating gallium or an alloy thereof into a porous scaffold. Such methods include selecting or providing a porous scaffold; and using a centrifuge to at least partially fill the porous scaffold with gallium or an alloy thereof. The void fraction of the filled-coated scaffold is preferably no more than about 10%. In some embodiments and implementations, the methods further include forming a coating on the porous scaffold to enhance wetting of the scaffold to gallium before infiltration with the centrifuge. With the coating, the void fraction of the filled-coated scaffold may be advantageously reduced to be no more than about 2%. Cleaning step(s) may be further provided to remove oxides from the scaffolds before infiltration with the centrifuge.

An apparatus uses a probe signal to generate a reflected signal from a target object for detecting the target object. Embodiments of the apparatus may operate in at least one of linear, harmonic, intermodulation, and cross-modulation modes. In some embodiments, the user may select between the four aforementioned modes of detection. Some embodiments disclosed herein, when operating in the harmonic mode or the cross-modulation mode, switch between banks of harmonically-related filters to stitch together a wideband nonlinear target response. In some embodiments disclosed herein, diplexers are implemented as absorptive filters to minimize system-generated harmonics. In some embodiments disclosed herein that are capable of operating in the cross-modulation mode, separate transmitters are implemented to minimize system-generated distortion.

A high-altitude platform and method for in-flight navigation, the platform comprising a ground-facing camera and a computing device including a memory and a processor, the memory storing instructions which when processed cause the computing device to perform a position determination method, comprising: acquiring one or more images from the ground-facing imaging device; retrieving, from an image dataset associated with a trained model, a plurality images associated with an area of interest; processing, using an image comparator, the acquired one or more images and the retrieved images associated with terrain of interest to derive therefrom respective acquired image feature sets; using a loss function, comparing each acquired image feature set to each retrieved image feature set to identify for each acquired image a corresponding matching retrieved image; using the matched image and the optical characteristics of the ground-facing camera, determining the position of the platform.

A pulse sequencer that generates multiple X-ray pulses via a single X-ray tube is described. The pulse sequencer may include multiple pulse generators arranged in parallel. The parallel pulse generators may be multiplexed to the X-ray tube. Each pulse generator may include an energy source and a switch and may be connected to an isolation diode. Each switch may be closed in a sequence to generate multiple pulses. The isolation diodes may isolate each pulse generator from other pulse generators. Each isolation diode may include various features to reduce recovery time. After firing a pulse generator, the associated diode may be temporarily shorted by plasma created within the isolation diode during pulse generation. Each isolation diode may include a set of one or more magnets that may be used to clear the plasma and reduce recovery time such that pulse frequency may be increased.

Disclosed is a method for grain growth mitigation in titanium, zirconium, and/or hafnium materials. The method may include heating a titanium, zirconium, and/or hafnium material in a processing atmosphere to a first temperature above a β transus temperature of the material. At a point in time before the material is at the first temperature, the method may include introducing hydrogen gas into the processing atmosphere to achieve a predetermined hydrogen partial pressure in the processing atmosphere. The method may include holding the material at the first temperature in the processing atmosphere at the predetermined hydrogen partial pressure for a first period of time.