An Efficient Object-Oriented System for Extracting Terrain Features from Contour Maps

Not Available Advanced Cerametrics, Inc. (ACI) has developed a process to manufacture continuous filaments of piezoelectric ceramic materials and had designed and delivered transducer and actuator devices using these fibers to commercial, military and research institutions. Piezoceramic fiber composites are more desirable than other technologies in many transducer and actuator applications. ACI intends to adapt its piezoelectric fiber manufacturing process to form long lengths of single-crystal relaxor ferroelectric materials at reasonable cost. The proposed reseach is broken into three steps: 1) process chemical compatability studies and initial fiber spinning, 2) spinning trials for texturing and/or melt growth along the fiber axis and 3) prototype device development. Congruently melting materials (non-lead based) will be spun and continuously sintered in a melt-zone furnace that ACI developed to make high-temperature superconducting fiber. Incongruently melting materials (lead-based) will be melt-textured using procedures requiring a controlled-atmosphere, which ACI developed for monolithic HTS materials. During the research ACI will build fiber composite transducers for ultrasound and underwater acoustic applications and active fiber composites for actuator applications. By the end of Phase II ACI will have relaxor ferroelectric single-crystal fiber composite sales to its existing commercial and military customers.