Air Force Officer Helps Build Clean Drinking Water Infrastructure for Iraqis

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph J. Fraundorfer, a senior reservist with AFRL, worked as deputy chief of the Water Sector for the Gulf Region Division in Iraq during his recent deployment. He worked alongside Air Force (AF), civilian, and Iraqi civil engineers as part of a construction crew working to

Researchers Discover Viscous Properties of Water

An AFRL-sponsored team at the Georgia Tech Center for Computational Materials Science discovered, via modeling and simulation methodologies, that water in layers 1 nm thick has viscous properties. This discovery will benefit the Air Force by encouraging researchers to use the same methods to reveal

AFRL-Funded Research Identifies New Material Properties

AFRL-sponsored researchers from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin have identified new properties in molybdenum-silicon-boron (Mo-Si-B) alloys. The researchers discovered that the alloys exhibit melting temperatures more than 800°C higher than

AFRL Research Advances Light-Emitting Diodes for Laser Applications

In-house sponsorship of an AFRL optoelectronics team is advancing Air Force combat systems through research into high-brightness/high-efficiency emission sources (e.g., light-emitting diodes and lasers) for laser radar and infrared countermeasures applications. In one effort, the team of AFRL

Base commander incorporates humor into quarterly call

"Let me start by saying 'thank you' for everything you do," said Col. Colleen Ryan, 88th Air Base Wing commander, at her first Commander's Call of the new fiscal year. "Everyday I hear about the great support being provided by the wing and for that I thank you." Punctuated by a collection of

AFRL-Funded Researchers Aid Military Efforts With 3-D Models of Urban Environments

An AFRL-funded research team at the University of California at Berkeley devised a novel methodology for building three-dimensional (3-D) models of urban environments in a fast, scalable, and automated way. The scans provide photorealistic renderings that enable virtual walk-, drive-, and

AFRL-Funded Researchers Identify Coherent Structures in Turbulent Airflow

An AFRL-funded team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., is working to detect and predict structures that create clear-air turbulence. The team's objective is to understand and forecast the atmospheric structures that underlie the airflow associated with the phenomenon.

AFRL Technology Improves Firefighting Vehicles

AFRL engineers developed a revolutionary new firefighting technology that will pave the way for a new generation of smaller, leaner, air-transportable fire trucks. The basis of the technology is a system for delivering ultra-high-pressure (UHP) agents to combat aircraft fuel fires--a capability that

Base firefighter competes in world firefighter challenge

AFRL Researchers Perform C-130 Functional Tip Tank Tests

AFRL worked in conjunction with Snow Aviation to perform tests on a modified C-130E aircraft fitted with functional tip tanks, eight-bladed NP2000 propellers, and extended dorsal and rudder surfaces. During the testing, which involved multiple flights, researchers measured tip tank impact on stall