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The paper presents work on development, testing and vehicle integration of inflatable wings for small UAVs. Recent advances in the design of inflatable lifting surfaces have removed previous deterrents to their use and multiple wing designs have been successfully flight tested on UAVs. Primary benefits of inflatable wings include stowability (deploy upon command) and robustness (highly resistant to damage). The inflatable planforms can be either full- or partial-span designs allowing a large design space and mission adaptability. The wings can be stowed when not in use and inflated prior to or during flight. Since inflatable designs have improved survivability over rigid wings, this has the prospect of increasing vehicle robustness and combat survivability. Damage resistance of inflatable wings is shown from results of laboratory and flight tests.

The high temperature and high neutron flux environment of a thermionic space power reactor presents a challenge in the design of the sheath insulator within a thermionic fuel element. The present alumina insulator design is suspect to degradation due to the neutron flux. The alumina insulator also requires a barrier coating to isolate it from the liquid alkali metal coolant. Although the alumina sheath development is progressing, the alumina insulator remains a potential point of significant performance loss in the thermionic fuel element. The recent successes in depositing polycrystalline diamond film onto cylindrical refractory metal substrates has led to the consideration of diamond as a potentially ideal sheath insulator. Investigations have been conducted into the durability of diamond thin film under exposure to simulated thermionic reactor conditions.

The Air Force has sponsored a program at the University of Kentucky which will lead to a better understanding of the thermal and fluid instabilities during blowdown of supercritical fluids at cryogenic temperatures. An integral part of that program is the design and construction of a hydrogen test facility. This paper describes the design specifications and construction of that hydrogen test facility. This facility will be capable of providing supercritical hydrogen at 30 bars and 35 K at a maximum flow rate of 0.1 kg/s for 90 seconds. Also presented here is an extension of this facility to accommodate the use of supercritical helium.

The paper presents work on testing of inflatable wings for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Inflatable wing history and recent research is discussed. Design and construction of inflatable wings is then covered, along with ground and flight testing. Discussions include predictions and correlations of the forces required to warp (twist) the wings to a particular shape and the aerodynamic forces generated by that shape change. The focus is on characterizing the deformation of the wings and development of a model to accurately predict deformation. Relations between wing stiffness and internal pressure and the impact of external loads are presented. Mechanical manipulation of the wing shape on a test vehicle is shown to be an effective means of roll control. Possible benefits to aerodynamic efficiency are also discussed.

The current Si/polymeric medical diagnostic sensors that are on the market only feature a one-point calibration system [1]. Such a measurement results in less accurate sensing and more in-factory sensor rejection. The two-point calibration fluidic method introduced here will alleviate some of the shortcomings of such current miniature analytical systems. Our fluidic platform is a disposable, multi-purpose micro analytical laboratory on a compact disc (CD) [2, 3]. This system is based on the centrifugal force, in which fluidic flow can be controlled by the spinning rate of the CD and thus a whole range of fluidic functions including valving, mixing, metering, splitting, and separation can be implemented. Furthermore, optical detection such as absorption and fluorescence can be incorporated into the CD control unit to obtain signals from pre-specified positions on the disc.