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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: | G 95-55 |
| August 15, 1995 |
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| Contact:
Michael Baum (301) 975-2763 michael.baum@nist.gov |
NIST ANNOUNCES 21 NEW ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM AWARDS |
The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology today announced 21 new industry-sponsored projects in three key technology areas that will receive cost-shared funding for research and development under the department's Advanced Technology Program, a government/private-sector partnership program aimed at stimulating economic growth and job creation.
The ATP supports strategic, high-risk research in the cutting-edge technologies. Six awards were made for projects exploring technologies for digital data storage, seven for projects on new techniques for vapor-compression refrigeration, and eight for projects in new materials and processing technologies for heavy manufacturing.
"New, cutting-edge technologies are among the most important drivers of a modern, industrial economy, creating jobs and growth," said Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. "The ATP is proving on a daily basis that it can deliver the goods, fostering valuable technologies that otherwise would be overlooked in a short-term-oriented marketplace."
The Advanced Technology Program provides cost-shared funding to industry for high-risk R&D projects with the potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the United States. While the program does not fund product-development projects, the ATP accelerates, and in many cases enables, potentially important R&D projects that industry otherwise would not undertake, or would not devote significant resources to, because of the technical risks involved. ATP awards are made on the basis of a rigorous competitive review considering scientific and technical merit of each and its potential benefits for the U.S. economy. Applicants must include a credible business plan for bringing the new technology to market with their own funds once technical milestones have been achieved under ATP support.
ATP focused programs concentrate resources on key technical barriers and business challenges in specific technologies judged by industry to offer the potential for major economic benefits to the nation. All current ATP focused programs were established in 1994 and will run for about five years.
The focused program in "Digital Data Storage" supports research in six key technologies magnetic media, recording heads, tribology, tracking, channel electronics and software underlying the next generations of high-performance mass data storage devices. The six awards under this program include three joint research ventures and involve a total of 20 participants.
The focused program in "Advanced Vapor-Compression Refrigeration Systems" supports research to develop more efficient, quiet and compact air-conditioning and refrigeration systems with the lowest possible environmental impact. Overall technical goals include increasing compressor efficiency by 25 percent, reducing noise levels and component size by an equal amount, and designing systems with no refrigerant leaks. The seven awards under this program include three joint research ventures and involve a total of 17 participants.
The focused program in "Materials Processing for Heavy Manufacturing" supports research on innovative materials-processing technologies for longer-lasting, more reliable, more efficient products trucks, construction equipment, power-generation equipment, automobiles and other surface transportation equipment, for example and improved manufacturing technologies to reduce costs. The eight awards under this program include three joint research ventures and involve a total of 14 participants.
If carried through to completion, the 21 projects announced today will cost approximately $70.7 million in ATP funding, plus approximately $67.3 million in cost-sharing by private industry. The awards announced today are contingent on the signing of formal agreements between NIST and the project proposers.
A list of the selected projects for the three competitions is included as part of this release.
As a non-regulatory agency of the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, NIST promotes U.S. economic growth by working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements and standards.
| Project Title | Awardee(s) | Description | Requested ATP Funds | Estimated Project Funds | Date Announced |
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| DIGITAL DATA STORAGE | |||||
| High-Performance, Variable-Data-Rate, Multimedia Magnetic Tape Recorder |
3M Company
Seagate Tape Technology, Inc., Santa Maria, CA Advanced Research Corp., Minneapolis, MN | Develop the underlying technology for a tape-based storage medium and recorder system that can accommodate the high data capacity and data transmission and acquisition rates needed for digital formats ranging from satellite-based TV, to teleconferencing over phone lines, to terrestrial cable and broadcast television. |
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| Enhanced Rigid Disk Drive Technology: High Resonance Suspension | Hutchinson Technology Incorporated | Increase the storage capacity of hard disk drives with a lightweight, more rigid head suspension technology that will enable the read-write head to reliably track lanes of data that are only half or a third as wide as those on today's hard disks. |
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| Digital Data Storage Technology via Ultrahigh-Performance Optical Tape Drive Using a Short-Wavelength Laser | LOTS Technology, Inc. | Develop an optical tape storage technology in which up to 180 tracks can be simultaneously written and read with multiple, independently controllable laser beams that could lead to data systems for rapidly storing, retrieving, and transferring 1 trillion bytes of information. |
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| Ultrahigh-Capacity Optical Disk: Multilayer Short-Wavelength Write-Once and Erasable Optical Disk Recording System |
National Storage Industry Consortium
Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, NY SDL, Inc., San Jose, CA Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA |
Develop a new optical disk technology using smaller bit sizes, multilayered storage media and shorter-wavelength laser light for reading and writing that could provide the basis for optical disks that can store 1 terabyte of data, 40 times more than is possible now. |
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| A Revolutionary, High-Density, High-Speed, Low-Cost Optical Information Storage Technology | Optex Communications Corporation | Develop inexpensive materials and manufacturing techniques to enable the use of a new high-density data storage technology in mass-market consumer products for video and computing applications. |
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| Technology Development for Optical-Tape-Based Rapid Access Affordable Mass Storage (TRAAMS) |
Terabank Systems, Inc.
Polaroid Corp. , Cambridge, MA Science Applications International Corp. , McLean, VA Xerox Corp.,El Segundo, CA Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., Troy, MI NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ |
Develop an optical tape-based technology capable of storing the entire cataloged holdings of the Library of Congress within an affordable tabletop system that changes the economics of mass data storage and triggers a cascade of opportunities in information-intensive businesses. |
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| VAPOR-COMPRESSION REFRIGERATION | |||||
| High- and Variable-Speed Co-Rotating Scroll | Copeland Corporation | Develop high- and variable-speed "co-rotating" scroll compressor technology powered by a switched reluctance motor/drive system for use in small, quiet residential cooling and heat pump units. |
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| Photocatalytic Indoor Air Purification for Air Conditioning Systems | E. Heller & Company | Develop photocatalytic indoor air purification technology that could be integrated with heating, cooling, and ventilation systems to remove volatile organic compounds and particulates. |
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| Compact Heat-Pump-Based Microchannel and Tangential Fan Technologies |
Lennox Industries, Inc.
Emerson Electric, Dallas, TX Heatcraft Inc., Grenada, MS |
Develop heat pump technology to enable units that could be 40 percent smaller and four times quieter than current-generation systems while also requiring 30 percent less refrigerant. |
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| Advanced Screw-Compressor-Based Air-Cooled Chiller Technology Development | The Trane Company | Develop experimental air-cooled chiller technology that uses environmentally safe refrigerants and offers enhanced performance and reliability as well as reduced noise, size, and cost. |
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| Novel Leak Detection Technology Development |
United Technologies Research Center
DeMaria Electroptics Systems, Inc., Bloomfield, CT Adaptive Optics Association, Inc., Cambridge, MA |
Develop a novel leak detection technology that is 100 times more sensitive than existing methods for detecting leaks in air-conditioning systems during manufacturing. |
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| Innovative, Small, High-Speed, Centrifugal Compressor and Integrated Heat-Exchanger/Fan Technologies |
United Technologies Research Center
Carrier Corp., Syracuse, NY AlliedSignal, Inc. , Buffalo, NY General Electric, Schenectady, NY DuPont Fluoroproducts, Wilmington, DE SatCon Technology Corp, Cambridge, MA Martin Marietta Control Systems, Johnson City, NY |
Develop low-cost, reliable, high-speed centrifugal mini-compressor and associated heat exchanger technology for a pre-prototype medium-sized rooftop air conditioning system. |
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| York Coil Technology Project | York International Corporation | Develop novel cooling coil design and manufacturing technologies that will enable a reduction in air conditioner size, improve quality and reliability, eliminate leakage, and improve indoor air quality. |
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| MATERIALS PROCESSING FOR HEAVY MANUFACTURING | |||||
| Aqueous Injection Molding for Low-Cost Fabrication of Silicon Nitride Components | AlliedSignal Inc. | Develop and refine a water-based injection molding process for low-cost silicon nitride components, enabling their use in high-performance turbine engines for auxiliary power units and other turbo machinery, such as stationary power generating systems. |
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| Low-Cost, Near Net-Shape Aluminium Casting Processes for Automotive and Truck Components |
AlliedSignal Inc.
Stahl Specialty Co., Kingsville, MO Top Die Casting Company, Inc., South Beloit, IL |
Develop design and process innovations for making die and permanent- mold castings with the aim of minimizing microstructural defects, thereby improving the quality and lowering the cost of cast aluminum components for cars and trucks. |
$1,244 K
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| Fabrication of Advanced Structures Using Intelligent and Synergistic Materials Processing |
Caterpillar Inc.
A.O. Smith, Milwaukee, WI The Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland, OH U.S. Steel, Pittsburgh, PA |
Combine and integrate research developments in steel and aluminum rolling, cutting, forming, welding, and process simulation to achieve significant improvements in fatigue life and allowable fatigue stress for steel and aluminum fabricated structures used in heavy equipment and surface transportation. |
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| Intelligent Processing of Materials for Thermal Barrier Coatings | General Electric Company | Develop an "intelligent process" for applying ceramic thermal barrier coatings on hot components of turbine engines used for generating power to improve the engines' efficiency, power production, emission, and lifetime. |
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| Ceramic Coating Technology for the Internal Surfaces of Tubular/Cylindrical Components | Praxair Surface Technologies, Inc. | Improve the durability and reliability of heavy equipment by developing technology that applies high-quality ceramic coatings to the internal surfaces of cylindrical parts and that replaces the need for electroplated chrome coatings. |
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| Development of Casting Technology to Produce Large Superalloy Castings for Industrial Applications | Precision Castparts Corporation | Develop casting technology that combines the superalloy processing capabilities of investment casting with the economic advantages of sand casting, and achieves part sizes sufficient to produce exhaust frames for industrial gas turbine engines. |
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| Cost-Effective Blade Manufacturing for Combustion Turbine Applications |
Westinghouse Electric Corporation
PCC Airfoils, Inc., Beachwood, OH |
Develop a cost-effective process for making larger versions of the high- performance superalloy blades of jet engines, enabling more efficient, cleaner running, and longer lasting combustion turbines for the power generation industry. |
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| Cost-Effective, Near-Net-Shape, Superalloy Forgings for Power Generation Gas Turbines | Wyman-Gordon Company | Design and develop an innovative forging process and tooling technology that enables existing U.S. presses to achieve cost-effective production of near-net-shape, nickel-based superalloy forgings for advanced gas turbine applications. |
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Date
created: August 15, 1995
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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