Briefs: Materials
Nanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume, such as solar cells that maximize exposure to sunlight, or fuel cell electrodes that catalyze...
Briefs: Medical
Stereolithography — a method of 3D printing — uses an ultraviolet laser controlled by a computer-aided design system to trace patterns across the surface of a photoactive polymer solution. The...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a test station capable of in-situ testing of material deposition and layer adhesion in an extrusion additive manufacturing process. The technology addresses the problem of...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Every complex human tool has contained multiple materials wedged, tied, screwed, glued, or soldered together. But the next generation of tools, from autonomous squishy robots to flexible...
Briefs: Materials
A small robot with the ability to hoist large loads could have countless applications, not only as a small, inexpensive, disposable, mobile sensor in the realms of search and rescue,...
Briefs: Medical
Cell Processing Cartridge for Miniature Cytometer
Portable flow cytometers, especially in handheld or briefcase sizes, have not been available. One reason is the need to support complex, high-pressure fluidics and process cells using a centrifuge and mixing device. A need existed for point-of-care and/or point-of-analysis flow cytometry.
Briefs: Materials
Shape memory alloys (SMAs) have the unique ability to recover large deformations in response to thermal, mechanical, and/or magnetic stimuli. This behavior occurs by virtue of a crystallo-graphically...
Briefs: Imaging
Additive Manufacturing Unique Serialization
Current methods of identifying a unique part involve adding a unique serial number to the part. There are many reasons that manufactured parts receive a serial number. They enable traceability of a part throughout its lifecycle, and ensure the part is not a counterfeit; however, labels and stamped...
Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Metal additive manufacturing is being embraced as a choice for parts production across many fields — including aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and other industries —...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Additive Manufacturing Facility for Utilization Primarily in Microgravity Environments
The purpose of this innovation is to create the ability to manufacture off Earth, primarily in a microgravity environment. This additive manufacturing facility (AMF) will have the capability to build tools, parts, experimental hardware, and upgrade hardware...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Magnesium is 75 percent lighter than steel, 33 percent lighter than aluminum, and is the fourth most common element on Earth behind iron, silicon, and oxygen. But despite its light...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Evolving and Controlling Behaviors in a Computation-Free Robot Swarm
Flocks of birds, schools of fish, and colonies of ants exhibit a remarkable robustness and resilience, despite the limited capabilities of each individual. Recently, research into bio-inspired swarm robotics has been gaining popularity due to the low-cost, robust, redundant,...
Briefs: Motion Control
Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created the first functional robot powered entirely by vacuum. It is made of soft building blocks that move by having air sucked...
Application Briefs: Motion Control
Deciding between a gantry and a robot for your application isn’t always as clear-cut as it may seem. To automate a simple, yet time-consuming and potentially dangerous task in...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Electromagnetic Mop (EMop) for Oil Spill Cleanup
The spillage of oil into the environment is an ongoing concern. Marine oil spills draw much attention because the oil harms marine animals and floral life. Current methods to aid in cleaning up the oil include containment booms, oil skimmers, and dispersants. Chemical dispersants are a tradeoff...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
On-line Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) System for Friction Stir Welding (FSW)
Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state welding process, and many industries are now relying on this technique to produce advanced structures. Industries employing this technique include, but are not limited to, aeronautical, motor vehicle,...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Contact design is critical to the performance of any connector — especially for devices that must function in harsh environments where extremes of temperature, shock, and vibration are...
Application Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Maple Plain, MN
www.protolabs.com
As products get smaller, their components need to follow suit, and springs are no exception. In a variety of...
NASA Spinoff: Robotics, Automation & Control
On the Curiosity rover, a tool called CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) is helping scientists determine what minerals make up the Martian landscape, and whether single-celled or more...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A team of researchers have designed, built, and tested two devices, called superconducting undulators, which could make X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) more...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Traditional heat shield design isolates the functions of the thermal protection system (TPS) from the underlying load-carrying structure. This is due to the use of brittle TPS material that...
Briefs: Materials
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a functionally graded metal-metal composite structure. The structure is created using a method that avoids deleterious reactions between the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Compact, Lightweight, Athermal, Nanocomposite Telescopes with Freeform Optics
Small space missions such as CubeSats frequently require telescopes with highly sophisticated optical systems that are also low in mass and cost. The very limited spacecraft volume and mass limits also preclude adjustments to maintain critical alignment with change in...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An airlock used in space can provide the ability to leave a pressurized volume and enter free space. This is necessary to perform maintenance or make repairs to the pressurized volume or visiting spacecraft,...
Briefs: Motion Control
Origami robots are composed of thin structures that can fold and unfold to change shape. They are compact and lightweight, but have functional restrictions related to size, shape, and...
Briefs: Imaging
In dark environments, it is often difficult to get a clear, high-quality image. To address this problem, a method was developed for spherically curving the flat image sensors...
Briefs: Materials
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling pipe blew out seven years ago, beginning the worst oil spill in U.S. history, those in charge of the recovery discovered that the millions of gallons of...
Briefs: Energy
Technology that embeds silicon nanoparticles into efficient luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) has been developed. The LSCs are the key element of windows that can efficiently...
NASA Spinoff: Photonics/Optics
Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the...
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