Navy Lab Inventors Win Awards

The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced that two inventors at the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Carderock Division will receive the Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen Award for Patented Inventions in a ceremony at ONR at 1:00 p.m. on May 21, 2003. Gabor Karafiath and Dominic Cusanelli won for leading-edge scientific research set forth in U.S. Patent #6,038,995. It's a combined wedge and flap geometry, relatively small extensions of the hull, reducing a ship's use of propulsive power turning the drive shaft, thereby reducing fuel consumption. Fuel savings as high as $17.8 million per year would also reduce fossil fuel emissions into the environment and save 420 thousand barrels of oil per year. The Navy plans to modify fleet ships and those constructed in the future.