CFD Research Corporation

CFD Research Corporation, a small business headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, delivers computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling, advanced materials research, artificial intelligence and machine learning, biomedical engineering, and systems engineering to defense and federal agencies as a prime contractor on roughly 1,062 recent awards (89% of its active footprint) spanning SBIR, STTR, and major indefinite-delivery vehicles. The company competes predominantly in small-business set-asides—the vast majority of its recent prime awards carry Total Small Business designations—and has established itself across multiple customer agencies and technical domains ranging from propellant and aerospace technologies to medical device development and environmental modeling.

CFD Research's customer concentration reflects its deep roots in defense research and development. The Department of the Air Force leads in potential value at roughly $1.9 billion combined across 59 awards, anchored by major IDIQ holdings including the $950 million Advanced Battle Management System contract and the $900 million Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Architecture and Integration Directorate IDIQ. The Department of the Army Materiel Command Research Development and Engineering Command ranks second at $124.3 million across 65 awards; NASA's Shared Services Center places third at $34.5 million across 103 awards. The Air Force Research Laboratory dominates by award count (140 awards, $83.4 million) and drives recurring SBIR and STTR activity. This concentration—the top five customers account for roughly 40% of award count and represent a 4% share of combined potential value—signals heavy reliance on small-business research vehicles rather than large production contracts.

Across concrete capability examples, CFD Research holds a $11.775 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory for autonomous decision-making in technology research under the Multi-Sensor Exploitation for Tactical Autonomy program (awarded June 2024, performance through September 2028). A $24.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee engagement with Air Mobility Command (May 2023 through May 2027) addresses in-silico toxicity evaluation of hazardous materials supporting airman health. The company recently won a $6.628 million definitive contract from DARPA for the Microsystem Induced Catalysis program (August 2025 through November 2028) focusing on multiscale modeling tools and fabrication techniques for catalytic molecules. Smaller awards span propellant research ($1.99 million Missile Defense Agency contract for high-slope, high-specific-impulse solid rocket motors, March 2026), blast-exposure modeling ($1.3 million and $1.249 million Defense Health Agency contracts, April 2026), and emerging areas such as organoid-based drug screening and microfluidic biomarker platforms for military medical applications.

CFD Research's vehicle position emphasizes small-business-reserved platforms. The company holds a seat on the OASIS+ Small Business (OASIS+SB) governmentwide multiple-award IDIQ with ceiling of $999,999,999,999 (awarded December 2024, term through December 2029) and has generated 77 task orders under the broader OASIS Small Business vehicle. A $139.9 million NASA Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators contract (October 2022 through September 2027) provides unrestricted design, manufacturing, and testing of inflatable structures. CFD Research also holds seats on the TETRAS II vehicle ($999.95 million ceiling, no set-aside, through June 2028) and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Architecture and Integration Directorate IDIQ ($900 million, multiple award, through November 2027). The recently awarded $151 billion Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) contract with the Missile Defense Agency (December 2025 through December 2035) provides multi-domain defense capabilities across air, missile, space, and cyber threat response, with an initial $500 delivery order issued and performance planned at Huntsville, Alabama and other locations.

Activity has grown year over year from 51 awards in 2022 to 89 in 2024; a decline to 62 awards in 2025 and 10 in 2026 reflects the source's capture of partial-year 2026 data rather than a trend. Notably, 31 awards (combined potential value $95.8 million) face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating significant recompete exposure. Recent SBIR/STTR Phase II work flowing into 2026–2027 includes contracts on rotating detonation rocket engines, infrared search and track frameworks, radiation-hardened processors, medical platforms for blast-exposure monitoring, and aeroservoelastic modeling—all typical of CFD's innovation-focused positioning within the small-business ecosystem.

CFD Research operates primarily as a self-performing prime contractor: across Service Contract Inventory records (a subset capturing service contracts above $150,000), the vendor self-performed essentially all hours on prime contracts with zero average subcontractor engagement. SCI-reported invoicing of $7.2 million across FY2022–FY2024 ($2.2 million in FY2022, $1.9 million in FY2023, $3.1 million in FY2024) covered roughly 4.4–6.7 FTEs per fiscal year on reportable service contracts. Government-paid hourly rates on federal services contracts ranged from roughly $95/hr at the 10th percentile to $486/hr at the 90th percentile, with a median of $209/hr, reflecting a portfolio spanning engineering technicians through senior subject-matter experts with advanced degrees. However, SCI captures only a narrow slice of federal services revenue; the company's total federal revenue—including SBIR/STTR awards, R&D contracts, IDIQ task orders, and grant work—substantially exceeds the $7.2 million SCI snapshot.

In its 11% subcontractor role, CFD Research delivers computational fluid dynamics, modeling and simulation, hardware design, and systems engineering to primes including Torch Technologies (recurring aerospace and missile simulation support under GSA OASIS SB and Army S3I directorate task orders), L3 Technologies (NGJ LB CB1 development work), Analytical Mechanics Associates (CAD development, aeromechanics, and CFD analysis supporting NASA rotorcraft and Army Future Vertical Lift), Booz Allen Hamilton (cyber operations support), and Radiance Technologies (GEOINT C4I defeat R&D). This subcontractor footprint—concentrated in a handful of recurring relationships—indicates CFD Research is a feeder to larger primes on specialized computational and systems work rather than a primary sub aggregator.

CFD Research's federal grant footprint spans the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH institutes including NIAID, NIGMS, NEI, and NICHD), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Food and Drug Administration. Representative work includes a $548.481 million cooperative agreement from NCATS (August 2025 through July 2028) to develop a microfluidic human uterus-on-chip model for investigating reproductive aging and spaceflight effects, an NIH NIGMS grant for AI-based codon harmonization in genetic engineering, and an NOAA Phase I award for deep-learning-based flash-drought prediction. The vendor acts as a prime recipient on these grants, conducting basic and applied research in biomedical engineering, computational biology, and climate science with potential Phase II expansion pathways.

CFD Research's GSA Schedule holds 33 labor categories spanning administrative support through subject-matter expert roles, with hourly rates from $43.07 (administrative, high school education) to $332.24 (subject-matter expert, master's degree, 25 years experience). The portfolio emphasizes engineering labor—technicians through senior engineers at experience levels 0–20 years—with no security-cleared roles on the Schedule. This coverage supports the vendor's positioning as a technical services provider to civilian and defense agencies via delivery order work and supports the company's broader delivery-order activity under OASIS+SB and other vehicles.

ENGINEERING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES TO THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY; SPECIALIZING IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS, TECHNIQUES AND COMPUTER CODES FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING PROBLEMS.