High-performance Design Research Articles

A compact, low-profile, and high-performance monopulse antenna array for missile seeker

In this paper, the authors presented a compact, low-profile, and high-performance ku-band monopulse antenna array (MAA) for missile seekers with reduced complexity involved in fabrication, assembly, and installation. They investigated a multilayered microstrip patch Antenna technology by systematically developing an efficient synthesis process, high-performance design of radiating elements as well a feed network integrated with monopulse circuitry, and innovative multiple layered joining processes, which overcome limitations of the existing MAA system. Optimum aperture distribution corresponding to desired radiation characteristics is synthesized using a hybrid synthesis technique in which collapse distribution (CD) is employed to initialize the Genetic Algorithm (CD-AvGA). The authors designed the proposed MAA with computed coefficient and carried out fabrication, assembly, and functional validation. The obtained experimental results are in close agreement with simulated ones and satisfy the missile seeker’s stringent functional and platform requirements.

γ-Ester-Functionalized 1,1-Dicyanomethylene-3-indanone End-Capped Nonfullerene Acceptors for High-Performance, Annealing-Free Organic Solar Cells.

Modifying the end-capping groups in nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) is an effective strategy for modulating their properties and that of the entire NFAs. This study reports the synthesis of a novel γ-ester-functionalized IC end-capping group (IC-γe) and its incorporation into the benzothiadiazole-fused central core, yielding isomer-free IC-γe end-capped NFAs, such as Y-IC-γe, Y-FIC-γe, and Y-ClIC-γe. The resultant NFAs exhibited similar absorption profiles but upshifted the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy level compared with those of the ester-free analogues, such as Y6 and Y7. Without thermal annealing, an excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.4% is realized in the annealing-free OSC based on Y-FIC-γe with the PM6 donor polymer, which outperforms the OSCs based on Y-IC-γe and Y-ClIC-γe. In addition, the OSCs based on asymmetric Y-FIC-γe and Y-ClIC-γe have higher thermal stability with more than 83% PCE retention at an elevated temperature after 456 h than the symmetric Y-IC-γe case. In this study, we not only establish the structure-property relationship regarding the ester functionality and symmetricity tuning on the NFAs but also diagnose the reasons for the best-performing Y-FIC-γe-based OSCs, providing useful information for a novel high-performing NFA design strategy.

Fabrication of hierarchical core–shell carbon microspheres@ layered double hydroxide@ polyphosphazene architecture in flame‐retarding polypropylene

Developing advanced performance polypropylene (PP) composites with less smoke, eco-friendly and efficient flame retardants (FRs) has been a growing focus of research. In particular, it was significant to reduce the emissions of smoke and toxic gases generated during the burning of PP so that it meets green and safe industrial requirements. In this work, a CMSs@LDH@PZN hierarchical core–shell framework was designed and synthesized by using carbon microspheres (CMSs) and layered double hydroxides (LDHs) nanosheets connected to CMSs by electrostatic forces with polyphosphazene (PZN). The structure, composition and morphology of CMSs@LDH@PZN were characterized by SEM, TEM, FT-IR, XRD and TG, and the results were shown the triumphant preparation of the well-designed hierarchical core–shell structure CMSs@LDH@PZN. Additionally, the total smoke production, peak heat release rate and total heat release rate of PP/CMSs@LDH@PZN composites were decreased by 56.2%, 41% and 43.4%, respectively. With the addition of 20 wt% CMSs@LDH@PZN alone, the PP/CMSs@LDH@PZN composites reached a V-0 rating in the Vertical combustion tester (UL-94), and had a limiting oxygen index (LOI) value of 29.6%. Moreover, the heat release and toxic smoke emission were significantly lessened, which can be own to the adsorption of core–shell hybrid materials and the barrier effect of the P and N element crosslinked carbon layer. Herein, this work extends the idea of preparing multipurpose high-performance composites and designs and synthesizes an eco-friendly and efficient flame retardant with a double shell structure.

(Invited) Evaluation of Steam Splitting (OER) Kinetics in Praseodymium-Based Perovskite Thin Film Electrodes for Efficient Intermediate-Temperature Water Electrolysis

Water electrolysis at high temperatures (> 600 ˚C) provides both kinetic (no precious metals) and thermodynamic (lower voltage requirement) benefits for hydrogen generation. However, recently steam electrolysis at intermediate temperatures (300 - 600 ˚C) has attracted attention, given potentially faster startup times, ready access to waste heat, and mitigation of some degradation modes, while maintaining some of the high temperature benefits. Intermediate-temperature electrolysis can be accomplished with protonic ceramic electrolysis cells (PCECs), for which a primary challenge is the need for efficient, chemically stable, and long-term durable oxygen/steam electrodes. Electrode material candidates tend to be perovskite-based oxides that must be triple conductors, enabling transfer of oxide ions, protons, and electronic species for PCECs. While Barium (Ba) containing perovskite (ABO3) oxygen electrodes are an active focus due to their low hydration enthalpies enabled by the basicity of Ba, their poor long-term stability and non-optimized catalytic activity hinder the practical deployment of PCECs. Additionally, segregation of large cations (e.g., Ba, Sr) often takes place on electrode surfaces, which further hinders their catalytic performance and long-term stability. Thus, we have been investigating synthesis and performance of lower-Ba or Ba-free oxygen/steam electrodes and relating these to the evolution of the surface chemistry during operation.In this work, we fabricated Pr-based perovskite oxides, including Pr(Ga,Mg)O3-x, Ba(Pr,Y)O3-x, and others, as thin films with well-defined geometries and surface areas using pulsed laser deposition and compared their performance to the standard Ba(Co,Zr,Fe,Y)O3-x. Considering the multiple valence states (3+, 4+) of Pr and its large size, which may lead to surface segregation, the inclusion of Pr, or even replacement of Ba with Pr, is hypothesized to benefit catalytic activity and stability. We examined the surface water splitting/ hydrogenation coefficients (k-values) using electrical conductivity relaxation with pH2O steps, as a function of time and gas atmosphere. Further investigations of the role of crystalline quality, composition, and thickness have been made to understand the factors controlling the thin film electrode activity and stability. Our results of quantitative k-values on well-defined surfaces can guide design of high performance steam/oxygen electrodes and understanding of degradation mechanisms impacting performance of PCECs.

Dual functionalized Ni substitution in shuttle-like In2O3 enabling high sensitivity NH3 detection

Hetero-atom doping is an effective way to improve the sensing performance of metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors. However, the synergistic effects generated from hetero-atom substitution in In2O3 lattice and the relationship between the fine surface structure and sensing performance is still ambiguous. Here, Ni substitution in shuttle-like In2O3 nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized, and the materials are fabricated as gas sensor to detect ammonia, which is a toxic molecule that is harmful for human healthy. We find the 2 wt% Ni-doped In2O3 NPs exhibit high sensitivity (Ra/Rg = 2569.42 towards 50 ppm NH3 at 140 °C), achieving 34 folds improvement compared with pristine In2O3 NPs. The sensor also shows good long-term stability, high selectivity and fast response/recovery (23/10 s). Detail structural analysis illustrate the substitution of Ni in rh-In2O3 phase and surface O−(ad) species neighboring the substitution sites are recognized as the active sites, and the reactive oxygen species and surface Bronster acidity can be dramatically enhanced after Ni modification, which contribute to the improvement of sensing performance. Our work illustrate the synergistic effects of hetero-atom doping on the sensing performance and pave the way for design of high performance sensing materials.

Empowering Base Stations With Co-Site Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces: User Association, Channel Estimation and Reflection Optimization

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has emerged as a promising technique to enhance wireless communication performance cost-effectively. The existing literature has mainly considered IRS being deployed near user terminals to improve their performance. However, this approach may incur a high cost if IRSs need to be densely deployed in the network to cater to random user locations. To avoid such high deployment cost, in this paper we consider a new IRS aided wireless network architecture, where IRSs are deployed in the vicinity of each base station (BS) to assist in its communications with distributed users regardless of their locations. Besides significantly enhancing IRSs’ signal coverage, this scheme helps reduce the IRS-associated channel estimation overhead as compared to conventional user-side IRSs, by exploiting the nearly static BS-IRS channels over short distance. For this scheme, we propose a new two-stage transmission protocol to achieve IRS channel estimation and reflection optimization for uplink data transmission efficiently. In addition, we propose effective methods for solving the user-IRS association problem based on long-term/statistical channel knowledge and the selected user-IRS-BS cascaded channel estimation problem. Finally, all IRSs’ passive reflections are jointly optimized with the BS’s multi-antenna receive combining to maximize the minimum achievable rate among all users for data transmission. Numerical results show that the proposed co-site-IRS empowered BS scheme can achieve significant performance gains over the conventional BS without co-site IRS and existing schemes for IRS channel estimation and reflection optimization, thus enabling an appealing low-cost and high-performance BS design for future wireless networks.

A Novel Plane‐Based Control Bus Design with Distributed Registers in 3D NAND Flash Memories

This work presents a novel plane-based area-saving control bus design with distributed registers in 3D NAND flash memory. 99.47% control signal routing wires are reduced compared to the conventional control circuit design. Independent multi-plane read is compatible with the existing read operations thanks to the register addresses are reasonably assigned. Furthermore, power-saving register group address-based plane gating scheme is proposed which saves about 2.9 mW bus toggling power. A four-plane control bus design with 20K-bits registers has been demonstrated in field programmable gate array tester. The results show that the plane-based control bus design is beneficial to high-performance 3D NAND flash memory design.

OpenMDS: An Open-Source Shell Generation Framework for High-Performance Design on Xilinx Multi-Die FPGAs

FPGA is a promising platform in designing hardware due to its design flexibility and fast development cycle, despite the device's limited hardware resources. To address this, latest FPGAs have adopted a multi-die architecture that employs multiple dies in a single device to provide abundant hardware resources. However, the multi-die architecture causes critical timing issues when signal paths cross the die-to-die boundaries, adding another design challenge in using FPGA. We propose OpenMDS, an open-source shell generation framework for high-performance design on Xilinx multi-die FPGAs. Based on the user's design requirements, it generates an optimized shell for the target FPGA via die-level kernel encapsulation, automated bus pipelining, and customized floorplanning. To evaluate our shell generation, we compare its implementation results against Xilinx's Vitis framework. As a result, OpenMDS uses average 20% less logic resources than Vitis for the same shell functionality. To show its practicality, we use OpenMDS for the design of machine learning accelerator that contains multiple systolic-array processors. OpenMDS achieves 247MHz and 235MHz kernel frequency and 400MHz and 429MHz memory bus frequency for U50 and U280, respectively, for the accelerator design over 90% logic utilization, claiming up to 12.27% and 22.92% higher kernel and memory bus frequency over Vitis.

Simulation-Based Recommendations for Digital Circuits Design Using Schottky-Barrier-Type GNRFET

The use of graphene nano-ribbon field-effect transistors (GNRFETs) in the nanoscale circuits design is challenging because there are several adjustable parameters that need to be selected carefully. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of changes in different GNRFETs’ parameters including channel length (Lch), oxide thickness (Tox), line-edge roughness (Pr), number of dimer lines (N), supply voltage, and temperature on the performance of inverter, Flip-Flop, and SRAM circuits. Performance analysis in terms of noise margin (NM), delay, average power, and energy-delay-product (EDP) show that those adjustable parameters of the GNRFETs are of a significant role in attaining low-power or high-performance requirements. To achieve low-power designs, GNRFETs with perfectly smooth edges and higher Tox should be used. For low-power designs with a smaller oxide thickness, it is suggested to select 9 for N with very low Pr. Otherwise, the priority would be choosing 13 for N. To attain high-performance designs with low delay, it is recommended to use the GNRFETs without Pr. If the edges of graphene nano-ribbons are not smooth, choosing (3p+1, ) periodic for N provides a potential improvement in circuit delay. Moreover, selecting 18 for N and smaller Tox provides a potential improvement in circuit delay.

Monolithic 3D phase profile formation in glass for spatial and temporal control of optical waves.

Optical manufacturing technologies play a central role in modern science and engineering. Progress on both subtractive and additive fabrications is transforming the implementation of optical technologies. Despite the recent advances, modern fabrication still faces challenges in the accuracy, dimension, durability, intensity, and wavelength range. Here we present a direct monolithic 3D phase profile formation in glass and demonstrate its versatile applications for high-accuracy spatial and temporal control of optical waves in the extreme wavelength and intensity domains, direct fabrication of microlenses, and in situ aberration correction for refractive components. These advances and flexibilities will provide a new dimension for high-performance optical design and manufacture and enable novel applications in a broad range of disciplines.

Approaching well-dispersed MoS2 assisted with cellulose nanofiber for highly durable hydrogen evolution reaction

The agglomeration and low conductivity of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) electrocatalysts restrict the presentation of its real intrinsic reaction activity, which leads to challenges for the high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, a well-dispersed and superhydrophilic/superaerophobic MoS2 catalyst with uniform three-dimensional conductive networks have been prepared assisted with cellulose nanofiber (CNF) and carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (cMWCNT). The resulted CNF/cMWCNT/MoS2 catalysts present a superhydrophilic/superaerophobic state with contact angles for water and bubble of 0° and 154.1° respectively. This structure effectively disperses MoS2 nanoparticles through uniform embeddedness and promotes gas-liquid mass transfer via wettability. Benefiting from these optimizations, the CNF/cMWCNT/MoS2 exhibits better HER performance and a low overpotential (154 mV @ 10 mA/cm2). Encourangingly, CNF/cMWCNT/MoS2 catalysts have a slight decay of 6.99 % at 10 mA/cm2 after 100 h, while the cMWCNT/MoS2 shows a decay of 35.83 %. This approach using natural CNF for well-dispersed catalysts provides a potential for high-performance HER electrode design.

Fabrication of W–20Cu composite with optimization of particle packing in PM route

The optimal design about the packing structure of W and Cu particles has become a focus of attention for developing the high performance W–Cu composites. In the present work, a series of numerical simulations and physical experiments were conducted to optimize the packing structure of W and Cu particles and establish the relation between particle size and sintering properties. The results reveal that the relative density and uniformity of the binary W–20Cu system showed a negative correlation with increasing size ratio of W and Cu particles. The optimal binary W–20Cu system can be formed when the size ratio of W/Cu particle is 1.5 and the peaked uniformity can reach 0.986. The (W45–20Cu30)-20(W10–20Cu10) size ratio in ternary W–20Cu mixture was identified as the best packing structure by optimization calculation for multi-component system. The relative density of best ternary (W45–20Cu30)-20(W10–20Cu10) system can reach 0.625, which was 10.7% higher than that of binary W45–20Cu30 system. In the best packing structure with size ratio, the sintering properties of ternary W–20Cu composites were efficiently improved by reducing particle size. The W–20Cu composite with small particles showed a tensile/compressive strength over 147/442 MPa (1.73/1.62 times that of the W–20Cu composite with large particles), an electrical conductivity of 36 %IACS, and a hardness of 190 HV. These highlighted results can provide some valuable references for the design and optimization of high performance W–Cu composite in the route of powder metallurgy.

Topology optimization in magnetic shield design by using density method in combination with CNN

PurposeThe density method is one of the powerful topology optimization methods of magnetic devices. The density method has the advantage that it has a high degree of freedom of shape expression which results in a high-performance design. On the other hand, it has also the drawback that unsuitable shapes for actually manufacturing are likely to be generated, e.g. checkerboards or grayscale. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method that enables topology optimization suitable for fabrication while taking advantage of the density method.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes a novel topology optimization method that combines convolutional neural network (CNN) as an effective smoothing filter with the density method and apply the method to the shield design with magnetic nonlinearity.FindingsThis study demonstrated some numerical examples verifying that the proposed method enables to efficiently obtain a smooth and easy-to-manufacture shield shape with high shielding ability. A network architecture suitable as smoothing filter was also exemplified.Originality/valueIn the field of magnetic field analysis, very few studies have verified the usefulness of smoothing by using CNN in the topology optimization of magnetic devices. This paper develops a novel topology optimization method that skillfully combines CNN with the nonlinear magnetic field analysis and also clarifies a suitable network architecture that makes it possible to obtain a target device shape that is easy to manufacture while minimizing the objective function value.

Rational Design of High-Performance Keratin-Based Hemostatic Agents.

Keratins are considered ideal candidates as hemostatic agents, but the development lags far behind their potentials due to the poorly understood hemostatic mechanism and structure-function relations, owing to the composition complexity in protein extracts. Here, it is shown that by using a recombinant synthesis approach, individual types of keratins can be expressed and used for mechanism investigation and further high-performance keratin hemostatic agent design. In the comparative evaluation of full-length, rod-domain, and helical segment keratins, the α-helical contents in the sequences are identified to be directly proportional to keratins' hemostatic activities, and Tyr, Phe, and Gln residues at the N-termini of α-helices in keratins are crucial in fibrinopeptide release and fibrin polymerization. A feasible route to significantly enhance the hemostatic efficiency of helical keratins by mutating Cys to Ser in the sequences for enhanced water wettability through soluble expression is then further presented. These results provide a rational strategy to design high-efficiency keratin hemostatic agents with superior performance over clinically used gelatin sponge in multiple animal models.

Low-Loss Heterogeneous Integrations With High Output Power Radar Applications at W-Band

This study presents a design of a 94-GHz high-performance and highly compact frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar sensor. In this sensor, an <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band CMOS-based all-digital phase-locked loop chip, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$W$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band SiGe-based transceiver monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$W$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band GaN-based MMIC power amplifier (PA) are heterogeneously integrated (HI). Each part of the 130-nm bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) SiGe-based transceiver MMIC is designed to include a low-noise amplifier, PA, octupler, mixer, and lange coupler. The fabrication process of our in-house silicon-based MEMS photosensitive composite film is developed to provide very high-density integration and very low insertion loss of interconnections between chips. The HI front end of the radar sensor is measured on-wafer with a high output power of 22 dBm. Moreover, a low double-sideband noise figure (NF) of 10.2 dB is obtained. Bonding–substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)–WG transitions between the heterogeneously integrated front end and the antenna are specially designed and verified. A 2.3-dB degradation is observed, where 19.7 dBm is measured at the transmitter WG WR-10-flange. Thus, the sensor offers a 55-dB dynamic range at a 2-m position with an expectation of a long-distance target-detection range. The radar sensor has an 11.7-cm range resolution and is only <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$60\times 40\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 8 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> in size, with a weight of only 78 g.

CONJUGATION OF CURVED LINES IN THE POINT CALCULUS

The paper implements a general approach to conjugate curves in the point calculus, which includes geometric algorithms for conjugating curves and their analytical description in the form of point equations. This is the mathematical basis for building high-performance computer-aided design systems and providing them with the necessary geometric modeling tools. Geometric algorithms for conjugating planar and spatial curves in general form involving, respectively, two or three free functions continuous and deferential within the parameter variation interval are considered. A point definition of tangents for planar and spatial curves is presented, which consists in differentiating the equation of the original curve by the current parameter followed by a parallel transfer of the resulting segment to the tangent point. Directly conjugation is provided by means of arcs of the first order of smoothness. Several examples of the definition of the arcs of the outline in the point calculus and recommendations on their use for the conjugation of curves are presented. The point equations given in the article and the computational algorithms based on them are valid not only for conjugation of curves, but also for straight lines, proceeding from the fact that a straight line is a special case of a zero-curvature curve that does not require a tangent to be constructed. The prospect of further research is for the conjugation of surface bays, in which two tangents to the original surface bays will form surface bays with cross-sections in the form of arcs of the outline of the chosen shape.

A Soft Error Detection and Recovery Flip-Flop for Aggressive Designs With High-Performance

Soft errors induced by Single Event Transient (SET) or Single Event Upset (SEU) are a great threat to integrated circuits. To reduce the error rate and improve the reliability of the circuits, we proposed a radiation hardened flip-flop in this paper, namely, Soft Error Detection and Recovery flip-flop (SEDR-FF). Error detection is based on delayed sampling and redundant storage by a redundant latch. A pulsed clock is adopted to control the redundant latch to reduce the hold time constraint of the latch. To generate the pulsed clock, two efficient delay elements are presented in this paper. Error recovery is accomplished by reloading the previous data stored in a history latch. Transistor-level simulations and timing-annotated gate-level simulations under 65 nm technology show that the proposed flip-flop can efficiently detect and correct the soft errors caused by SET or SEU. It has low overhead of setup time, and is suitable for high-performance designs. In addition, compared with other radiation hardened cells, the proposed flip-flop has moderate power and area overhead, and has lower area cost for fixing hold time violations in circuits designs.

Neural network-assisted optimization of segmented thermoelectric power generators using active learning based on a genetic optimization algorithm

Because the properties of thermoelectric (TE) materials are strongly dependent on temperature and differ considerably, segmented TE legs composed of multiple stacked TE materials have been investigated to provide efficient operation of TE devices. However, owing to the inherent nonlinearity that limits the application of conventional optimization approaches, the optimal configuration of segmented TEGs (STEGs) must have been sought heuristically. In this study, we propose a systematic approach that enables the efficient exploration and exploitation of the vast design space of STEGs by leveraging the fast inference of deep learning. First, we train a neural network (NN) model using a dataset generated from finite element analysis (FEA) for a single TE leg with four stacked segments from among 18 TE materials with varying segment lengths and external loads. We then use a genetic optimization algorithm (GOA) with our trained NN model to search for high-performance design candidates. The performance of the new candidates is computed and validated based on FEA, and the results are used to update the NN through an active learning technique. After iteratively performing the procedure, we can fine-tune the TE legs for optimal efficiency, optimal power, and given combinations of both power and efficiency. Furthermore, we discuss the physical origin of optimally performing STEGs.

A parallel decomposition approach for building design optimization

Integrated building design can promote high-performance, energy-efficient, and sustainable building designs by holistically considering design variables of simulation models from different disciplines. However, the complexity of the design increases drastically with the increasing dimension of the design problem. In some cases, solving high-dimension problems is not technically feasible nor time-efficient. Parallel decomposition can solve this problem by dividing the original problem into several smaller subproblems to be solved separately. Variable grouping is the first step of parallel decomposition. In order to obtain global optimal solutions, the existing variable grouping criterion focuses on whether there is an interaction between variables. Since many variables in building simulation interact, the building design optimization problems could be inseparable using this criterion. This study proposes a new variable grouping criterion, which can achieve the global optimum and decompose variables with strong interactions. This proposed criterion is combined with the existing one and presented as a dual-criteria variable grouping method for parallel decomposition. Sensitivity analysis is used to assess the existing criterion, and interaction plots are used to evaluate the proposed criterion. To demonstrate the applicability and runtime efficiency of the proposed parallel decomposition, the approach is applied to solve the single-objective optimization problems of a benchmark function and a low-rise office building. The results show that the proposed approach finds the global optimal solutions and takes less computation time than optimization without decomposition. In this study, each subproblem is solved while the variables in other subproblems are set as default values. With the results of the reference case of a full factorial design, it is found that the subproblem might achieve local optimum depending on the default values of variables in the other subproblems. This potential issue can be overcome by optimizing the subproblem with the strongest main effect first and using the results for subsequent subproblems with decreasingly weaker main effects.

Wear of Bulk Metallic Glass Alloys for Space Mechanism Applications

Abstract Space-based mechanisms must operate under harsh environments, usually without access for maintenance; failure may result in a loss of a spacecraft. Therefore, space agencies support research on high-performance mechanism designs and materials, one key area being space tribology. Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) are a class of alloy characterized by their amorphous structure, which results in a material with extremely high strength, corrosion resistance, high hardness, and high elastic limit. BMGs have demonstrated improved wear resistance when compared against traditional engineering materials in similar applications. Four BMG compositions, Zr53Al16Co23.25Ag7.75, Zr49Ti1.96Cu37.24Al9.8Y2, Zr60Ti2Nb2Al7.5Ni10Cu18.5, and Cu47Zr46Al5Y2 (at%), were selected from the literature as potential candidates for space-based mechanisms applications. Wear testing, hardness, profilometry, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy analysis were performed on the selected alloys, and their results were compared. High-resolution 3D profilometry and detailed image analysis of wear tracks and volume loss resulted in a critical re-assessment of the Archard wear coefficient. For the compositions tested, the hardness was not a useful predictor of the wear performance as suggested by the Archard wear equation. Processing history and test configuration significantly influenced the wear behavior. The alloy Zr49Ti1.96Cu37.24Al9.8Y2 was found to be the best BMG candidate for space wear applications when taking manufacturability into consideration. BMG hardness and wear test results were compared with similar testing performed on conventional crystalline alloys commonly used in space applications: titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V ELI, and cold-worked stainless steels AISI 303 and AISI 304.