The Collier Report of U.S. Government Contracting

Sampling of Federal Government Funding Actions/Set Asides

In order by amount of set aside monies.

• $749,819 - Thursday the 4th of December 2014
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER
  IGF::OT::IGF OTHER FUNCTION - THE GOALS OF REDUCING TOTAL COST AND INCREASING RELIABILITY AND SAFETY OF ACCESS TO SPACE CONTINUE TO BE TOP PRIORITIES FOR NASA. THE MOST IMMEDIATE PROPULSION LAUNCH CHALLENGE INVOLVES INCREASING LIFT WEIGHT FROM 70 TO 130 METRIC TONS BY DEVELOPING THE HEAVY LIFT SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM (SLS). SOLID ROCKET MOTOR ANALYSIS TOOLS ARE NEEDED TO SIMULATE IGNITION AND PROPELLANT RECESSION DURING THE BURN, BUT CURRENT MODELS ARE LIMITED IN THEIR ABILITY TO CAPTURE IGNITION TRANSIENTS OR LARGE GRAIN DEFORMATIONS DURING MOTOR OPERATION. WE PROPOSE TO ADVANCE PROPELLANT SURFACE HEATING, IGNITION, AND BURNING MODELS AS WELL AS SURFACE MESH RECESSION ALGORITHMS TO ADDRESS A STRONG NEED FOR IMPROVED IGNITION PHYSICS AND GRAIN BURN BACK AND TO DELIVER A UNIQUE AND POWERFUL SOFTWARE TOOL FOR CURRENT AND NEXT GENERATION SOLID ROCKET MOTOR SIMULATIONS. THE PHASE I PRODUCTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN FIELDED BY NASA FOR IGNITION CALCULATIONS INVOLVING THE LAUNCH ABORT SYSTEM JETTISON MOTOR AND RSRMV. WHILE THESE CALCULATIONS ARE STILL IN THE PRELIMINARY STAGES, CONTINUED INNOVATION OF THIS SUCCESSFUL TECHNOLOGY STRONGLY SUGGESTS THAT OUR RESEARCH PRODUCTS WILL PROVIDE NASA WITH THE IMPORTANT CAPABILITY TO SIMULTANEOUSLY ANALYZE SOLID PROPELLANT HEAT TRANSFER, COMBUSTION, AND GRAIN BURN BACK WITHIN A SINGLE FRAMEWORK. VALIDATION OF THE INTEGRATED TOOLS TO A TRL OF 5 WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED USING AVAILABLE MOTOR DATA PROVIDED BY ATK WHILE PHASED RELEASES OF THE NEW SOFTWARE CAPABILITIES WILL ALLOW NASA IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO INCREMENTAL UPDATES AS SOON AS THEY ARE AVAILABLE. ADVANCING THIS SIMULATION CAPABILITY WILL PROVIDE A LARGE BENEFIT TO NASA BECAUSE OF ITS COMPATIBILITY WITH NASA'S MISSION AND EXPERTISE.

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• $175,000 - Friday the 10th of July 2015
  National Aeronautics And Space Administration
  MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
  STTR PHASE III AWARD DEVELOPMENT OF ROBUST, PRODUCTION QUALITY WATER MITIGATION MODEL IN LOCICHEM STATEMENT OF WORK 1. BACKGROUND NASA/MSFC HAS A NEED FOR A CFD-BASED MODEL OF WATER MITIGATION FOR ROCKET VEHICLE LAUNCH PAD ENVIRONMENTS. APPLICATION OF LIQUID WATER ON THE LAUNCH PAD IS USEFUL FOR SUPPRESSION OF IGNITION OVER PRESSURE (IOP) AND LAUNCH PAD ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENTS. TRADITIONALLY, WATER IS APPLIED IN LARGE QUANTITIES TO LOCATIONS CONCENTRATED NEAR THE ROCKET ENGINE OR MOTOR NOZZLE EXIT PLANE IN ORDER TO SUPPRESS THE PRESSURE AND THERMAL LOADS ON THE ROCKET VEHICLE AND LAUNCH PAD GENERATED BY THE ENGINE OR MOTOR START TRANSIENT. WATER IS ALSO SUPPLIED IN A LESS CONCENTRATED MANNER TO THE SURFACES WHERE THE ENGINE OR MOTOR PLUMES IMPINGE ON THE LAUNCH PAD IN ORDER TO SUPPRESS THE ACOUSTIC LOAD IMPOSED UPON THE ROCKET VEHICLE. THE SELECTION OF THE WATER APPLICATION LOCATIONS AND QUANTITIES ARE HISTORICALLY GUIDED BY THE RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTING USING SUBSCALE ROCKET ENGINES AND MOTORS ALONG WITH A SUBSCALE LAUNCH PAD. THESE SUBSCALE EXPERIMENTS ARE EXPENSIVE AND TIME-CONSUMING. COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS (CFD) -BASED METHODS TO AUGMENT THE DESIGN PROCESS WOULD BE A WELCOME DEVELOPMENT. NASA/MSFC HAS RECENTLY VALIDATED THE LOCICHEM CFD PROGRAM FOR THE PREDICTION OF SUBSCALE ROCKET MOTOR IOP ENVIRONMENTS FOR CONDITIONS WHERE WATER MITIGATION IS NOT PRESENT. THE LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL IN LOCICHEM HAS ALSO BEEN USED IN ATTEMPTS TO PREDICT THE EFFECTS OF WATER ADDITION IN LOCATIONS SELECTED TO MITIGATE BOTH IOP AND ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENTS. WHILE THESE MODELS HAVE RESULTED IN PHYSICALLY-REALISTIC ALTERATIONS OF THESE ENVIRONMENTS, THE SIMULATIONS HAVE NOT BEEN RUN TO COMPLETION DUE TO A SEVERE LACK OF ROBUSTNESS. THE CORE CAUSE OF THE LACK OF ROBUSTNESS APPEARS TO ORIGINATE FROM CONDITIONS DEVELOPING WHICH VIOLATE THE BASIC JUSTIFYING APPROXIMATIONS BEHIND THE LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL. IN CFD SIMULATIONS, LARGE NUMBERS OF PARTICLES ACCUMULATE IN CERTAIN REGIONS, TYPICALLY NEAR SOLID SURFACES, LEADING TO THE RATIO OF PARTICULATE PHASE TO GASEOUS PHASE MASS BECOMING LARGE ENOUGH TO VIOLATE THE DISPERSED ASSUMPTION BEHIND THE PARTICLE MODEL FORMULATION AND LEADING TO A NUMERICAL INSTABILITY IN THE SOLUTION OF THE COUPLED GAS PHASE/PARTICULATE SYSTEM OF EQUATIONS. A NEED EXISTS TO INVESTIGATE THE CAUSES OF THE LACK OF ROBUSTNESS DESCRIBED ABOVE AND FORMULATE APPROACHES WHICH LEAD TO SUCCESSFUL, ROBUST SIMULATIONS AND VALIDATION OF PREDICTIONS OF WATER MITIGATION FOR IOP AND ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENT GENERATION ON ROCKET VEHICLE LAUNCH PADS. 2. SCOPE A RECENTLY AWARDED STTR PHASE II CONTRACT NNX12CB09C, ADVANCED FLOW ANALYSIS TOOLS FOR TRANSIENT SOLID ROCKET MOTOR SIMULATIONS , WAS AIMED AT IMPROVING THE IGNITION MODELING AND GRAIN RECESSION OF SOLID ROCKET PROPELLANTS INCLUDING THE SOLID PARTICLES GENERATED AT THE COMBUSTING FUEL SURFACE AND PROPAGATED OUT OF THE ROCKET USING THE LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL. THIS EFFORT BUILDS UPON A PREVIOUS STTR PHASE I AND PHASE II CONTRACT, NNX09CB73C, MULTI-PHASE FLOW ANALYSIS TOOLS FOR SOLID MOTOR APPLICATIONS , WHICH DEVELOPED SOLID PARTICLE TO WALL INTERACTION MODELS USING THE LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL. IN ADDITION, THIS CONTRACT ALSO DEVELOPED CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE MIXED-PHASE THERMODYNAMICS AND SHOCK PROPAGATION. THIS WORK EFFORT SHALL CHARACTERIZE AND DIAGNOSE THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS LEADING TO THE ULTIMATE LACK OF ROBUSTNESS OF LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL-BASED CFD SIMULATIONS OF LIQUID WATER APPLICATION TO ROCKET VEHICLE LAUNCH PADS. BASED ON THIS CHARACTERIZATION, IMPROVEMENTS, ADDITIONS AND/OR ALTERATIONS TO THE LOCICHEM CFD PROGRAM AND LAGRANGIAN PARTICLE MODEL SHALL BE FORMULATED AND IMPLEMENTED TO REMEDY THE LACK OF ROBUSTNESS.

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