Energy

NRL’s Hybrid Tiger UAV Soars at Demonstration

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory engineers recently demonstrated Hybrid Tiger, an electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with multi-day endurance flight capability. The team integrated...

Army to Consider Electric Vehicles, Alternative Fuel Options

Commercial-led advancements in electric vehicle technology have pushed the Army Futures and Concepts Center to take a hard look at the capability and find ways to integrate it...

Discovery Could Lead to Munitions That Go Further, Much Faster

Researchers from the U.S. Army and top universities discovered a new way to get more energy out of energetic materials containing aluminum, common in battlefield systems, by...

Permeation Tests on Polypropylene Fiber Materials

The Toxic Industrial Chemical/Toxic Industrial Material (TIC/TIM) Task Force MFR#1 published in February 2009 focuses on inhalation hazards in an operational environment and provides a list...

Army Scientists Discover Power in Urine

Scientists at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory observed an unexpected result when combining urine with a newly engineered nano-powder based on aluminum. It instantly releases hydrogen from the...

Airline Industry Could Soar on Sugarcane Fuel

Plants Engineered to Replace Oil in Sugarcane and Sweet Sorghum (PETROSS), funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E), has developed sugarcane that produces oil, called...

Zero-Emissions Electric Aircraft: Theory vs Reality

Many different electrically propelled aircraft have been or are soon to be flying. Recently a zero-emissions electric aircraft, Solar Impulse, flew around the world with zero fuel....

Designing a Power Generation System for a More-Electric Aircraft

It is theorized that systems and equipment for an All Electric Aircraft (AEA) will be developed 20 years hence as a More-Electric Aircraft (MEA) with no bleed system, which is...

NASA Tests New Green Propellants for Satellites

To stay in the proper orbit, many satellites have thrusters – small rocket engines – that fire to change altitude or orientation in space. On Earth, where gravity dominates, five pounds of...

NASA Tests Aircraft Wing Coatings that Slough Bug Guts

Bug guts create drag, and drag increases fuel consumption. But aircraft of the future could be made more fuel-efficient with non-stick coatings NASA recently tested on Boeing’s...

Researchers Create Jet Fuel Compounds From Fungus

Washington State University researchers have found a way to make jet fuel from a common black fungus found in decaying leaves, soil, and rotting fruit. They used Aspergillus...

Flying on Vegetation

Fuel is expensive for airlines. According to sources interviewed for this article, fuel accounts for 30 to 50% of operating costs, depending on the size of the aircraft. And fuel prices remain volatile.

Hurricane-Tracking Unmanned Systems Win NASA Challenge

NASA has selected three winning designs solicited to address the technological limitations of the uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) currently used to track and collect data on hurricanes....

Alternative Energy and Propulsion Power for Today's U.S. Military

The U.S. military has the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world, but they are fueled and mechanically powered by old technologies. Given the mission of the U.S....