Proposals from 18 U.S. university-led research teams from the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH), totaling $25.5 million, were selected as awardees for prototyping contracts by the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO). The teams include participation from U.S. industry, national labs, federally funded research and development centers, university-affiliated research centers and Australian universities.
“This year’s awardees represent outstanding research proposals from our consortium members,” said Dr. Gillian Bussey, director, JHTO. “The research they are working on is aligned with our goals and will have a major impact on advancing the field of hypersonics.”
The following are the awardees for the first project call:
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Non-Destructive Testing for Hypersonics Materials Manufacturing of Carbon/Carbon Composites
- Georgia Institute of Technology: Machine Learning Enhanced Ultrasonic Inspection for Non-Destructive Characterization of Manufacturing Defects in Hypersonic Materials
- North Carolina Agricultural and Technical: Impact Welding and Phase Change Enabled Sealing of High Temperature Metal-Composite Interfaces
- Georgia Institute of Technology: Improved Window and Radome Material Testing for Hypersonic Vehicle Sensors and Seekers.
- University of Virginia: Additive Manufacturing of High-Performance Niobium Alloys Components for Scramjet Applications: Going Beyond Alloy C103
- Georgia Institute of Technology: Development and Experimental Validation of Multi-Modal Control for Rapidly-Changing Flight Dynamics
- Pennsylvania State University: Next Generation Numerical Methods for High-Fidelity Trajectory Generation for Hypersonic Vehicles
- University of Michigan: Robust Adaptive Control of a Dual-Mode Scramjet with Targeted Uncertainty Quantification
- University of Central Florida: High-Performance Solid-Fuels for Hypersonic Air Breathing Propulsion
- The University of Texas at Arlington: Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Directed Energy Radiation Interactions for Hypersonic Applications
- University of Arizona: Fusion of Multi-Fidelity Experimental and Computational Data for the Construction and Enrichment of a Surrogate Aerodynamic Database
- United States Air Force Academy: Free Flight Wind Tunnel Experiments and Simulations for Control Jet Applications in Hypersonic Flows
- Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station: Shock Interface Cooling in Hypersonic Environments
- The University of Texas at San Antonio: Modeling and Experimental Measurements of Hypersonic Separation Events
- Air Force Institute of Technology: Efficient Multidisciplinary Optimization Methodologies for Hypersonic Systems
- Johns Hopkins University: Machine-Learning Informed Topology Optimization for Multiscale Design of Cellular Structures
- University of Iowa: Energetic Materials Selection and Micro-Structural Design for Robust Performance Under Damage Scenarios
- University of Alabama-Huntsville: Solid Fuel Rotating Detonation Ramjet Engine for Hypersonic Air-Breathing Propulsion
This is the first in a series of planned solicitations from JHTO through UCAH over the next four years. For more information about open solicitations, see our project calls or view the full press release.
University Consortium of Applied Hypersonics
UCAH is a collective network of universities partnering with government, industry, national laboratories, federally funded research centers and university-affiliated research centers to serve the U.S. Department of Defense requirements in hypersonics-related science and technology, workforce development and technology transition. UCAH is a five-year, $100-million consortium funded by the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office and led by Dr. Rodney Bowersox, executive director, UCAH, and associate dean for research, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.