NASA SBIR 2005 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Nastec, Inc.
1801 East Ninth Street, Suite 1111
Cleveland ,OH 44114 - 3103
(216) 696 - 5157

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Richard C.   Klein
dickc123@earthlink.net
1801 East Ninth Street, Suite 1111
Cleveland, OH  44114 -3103
(216) 696 - 5157

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Multi-roller traction drives have several advantages relative to geared units for aerospace and commercial drive applications. Among these are zero backlash, low torque ripple, compactness, light weight, and unlike gears, the potential to operate without liquid or grease lubrication. Current traction drives are made from heat treated bearing steels and require special traction fluids which limited their use to terrestrial applications. Space applications such as planetary vehicles operate in hostile environments. Innovations in material technology for non-lubricated operation will be required in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of traction drives relative to gears. Phase I work of this proposal will provide the basis for alternative nonmetallic materials to be substituted for bearing steel. These materials must have low wear but high traction characteristics. The proposed effort under Phase I will be used as a basis for a Phase II effort, in which one or more prototype systems will be designed, built and tested for space exploration applications. Applications include robotic arms, speed and torque balanced drives for scientific instruments and zero torque reaction drives for planetary vehicles.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Potential NASA space applications for these drives include: Moon and Martian rover transmission drives, robotic arms, construction vehicles and equipment, and essentially any application needing either drive speed increasers or reducers.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
If successful, many more Earth-based uses of these drives may occur, since fabrication of bearing steel drives are very expensive and this has inhibited their use. Alternate affordable processing and manufacturing technologies for final net shape forming roller geometries without final machining or heat treatment will enable much cheaper drives to be made. We will also conduct design and life analysis using non-metallic materials to quantify the benefits of polymer drives. These drives may find uses in automobiles, power lifting equipment, windmills, etc.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Aircraft Engines Human-Robotic Interfaces In-situ Resource Utilization Manipulation Manned-Manuvering Units Mobility Tools Tribology