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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2017

Protecting the Health of Astronauts: Enhancing Occupational Health Monitoring and Surveillance for Former NASA Astronauts to Understand Long-Term Outcomes of Spaceflight-Related Exposures

The astronaut community is unique, and may be disproportionately exposed to occupational hazards not commonly seen in other communities. The extent to which the demands of the astronaut occupation and exposure to spaceflight-related hazards affect the health of the astronaut population over the life course is not completely known. A better understanding of the individual, population, and mission impacts of astronaut occupational exposures is critical to providing clinical care, targeting occupational surveillance efforts, and planning for future space exploration. The ability to characterize the risk of latent health conditions is a significant component of this understanding. Provision of health screening services to active and former astronauts ensures individual, mission, and community health and safety. Currently, the NASA-Johnson Space Center (JSC) Flight Medicine Clinic (FMC) provides extensive medical monitoring to active astronauts throughout their careers. Upon retirement, astronauts may voluntarily return to the JSC FMC for an annual preventive exam. However, current retiree monitoring includes only selected screening tests, representing an opportunity for augmentation. The potential long-term health effects of spaceflight demand an expanded framework of testing for former astronauts. The need is two-fold: screening tests widely recommended for other aging populations are necessary to rule out conditions resulting from the natural aging process (e.g., colonoscopy, mammography); and expanded monitoring will increase NASA's ability to better characterize conditions resulting from astronaut occupational exposures. To meet this need, NASA has begun an extensive exploration of the overall approach, cost, and policy implications of e an Astronaut Occupational Health program to include expanded medical monitoring of former NASA astronauts. Increasing the breadth of monitoring services will ultimately enrich the existing evidence base of occupational health risks to astronauts. Such an expansion would therefore improve the understanding of the health of the astronaut population as a whole, and the ability to identify, mitigate, and manage such risks in preparation for deep space exploration missions.

Rossi, Meredith↗
NASA NTRS2016

Supply Warehouse#3, SWMU 088 Operations, Maintenance, and Monitoring Report Kennedy Space Center, Florida

This document presents the findings, observations, and results associated with Operations, Maintenance, and Monitoring (OM&M) activities of Corrective Measures Implementation (CMI) activities conducted at Supply Warehouse #3 (SW3) located at John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida from October 8, 2015, to September 12, 2016, and performance monitoring results for semi-annual sampling events conducted in March and September 2016. The primary objective of SW3 CMI is to actively decrease concentrations of trichloroethene (TCE) and vinyl chloride (VC) to less than Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) Natural Attenuation Default Concentrations (NADCs), and the secondary objective is to reduce TCE, cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cDCE), trans-1,2-dichloroethene (tDCE), 1,1-dichloroethene (11DCE), and VC concentrations to less than FDEP Groundwater Cleanup Target Levels (GCTLs). The SW3 facility has been designated Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 088 under KSC's Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action Program. Based on the results to date, the SW3 air sparging (AS) system is operating at or below the performance criteria as presented in the 2008 SW3 Corrective Measures Implementation (CMI) Work Plan and 2009 and 2012 CMI Work Plan Addenda. Since the start of AS system operations on December 19, 2012, through the September 2016 groundwater sampling event, TCE concentrations have decreased to less than the GCTL in all wells within the Active Remediation Zone (ARZ), and VC results remain less than NADC but greater than GCTL. Based on these results, team consensus was reached at the October 2016 KSC Remediation Team (KSCRT) meeting to continue AS system operations and semi-annual performance monitoring of volatile organic compounds in March 2017 at ten monitoring wells at select locations, and in September 2017 at four monitoring wells at select locations to reduce VC concentrations to below GCTL. Additionally, surface water samples will be collected at locations SW0001, SW0002, and SW0003 during both the March and September 2017 events. Team consensus was also reached at the October 2017 KSCRT meeting to continue with operation and maintenance (O&M) of the AS system at SW3.

REPORT↗
NASA NTRS2011

Combustion Products Monitor: Trade Study Testing

Current combustion products monitoring on the International Space Station (ISS) uses a handheld device (Compound Specific Analyzer-Combustion Products, CSA-CP) containing electrochemical sensors used to measure the concentration of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and oxygen (O2). The CO sensor in this device accounts for a well-known cross-sensitivity with hydrogen (H2), which is important, as ISS air can contain up to 100 ppm H2. Unfortunately, this current device is being discontinued, and due to space constraints, the new model cannot accommodate the size of the current CO sensor. Therefore, a trade study was conducted in order to determine which CO sensors on the market were available with compensation for H2, and which instruments used these sensors, while also measuring HCN, O2, and carbon dioxide (CO2). The addition of CO2 to the device is helpful, as current monitoring of this gas requires a second hand-held monitor. By providing a device that will monitor both combustion products and CO2, volume and up-mass can be reduced as these monitors are delivered to ISS.

Wallace, William T.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Expansion of Microbial Monitoring Capabilities on the International Space Station (ISS)

Microbial monitoring is one of the tools that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) uses on the International Space Station (ISS) to help maintain crew health and safety. In combination with regular housekeeping and disinfection when needed, microbial monitoring provides important information to the crew about the quality of the environment. Rotation of astronauts, equipment, and cargo on the ISS can affect the microbial load in the air, surfaces, and water. The current ISS microbial monitoring methods are focused on culture-based enumeration during flight and require a significant amount of crew time as well as long incubation periods of up to 5 days there by proliferating potential pathogens. In addition, the samples require return to Earth for complete identification of the microorganisms cultivated. Although the current approach assess the quality of the ISS environment, molecular technology offers faster turn-around of information particularly beneficial in an off-nominal situation. In 2011, subject matter experts from industry and academia recommended implementation of molecular-based technologies such as quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for evaluation to replace current, culture-based technologies. The RAZOR EX (BioFire Defense, Inc, Salt Lake City, UT) a ruggedized, compact, COTS (commercial off the shelf) qPCR instrument was tested, evaluated and selected in the 2 X 2015 JSC rapid flight hardware demonstration initiative as part of the Water Monitoring Suite. RAZOR EX was launched to ISS on SpaceX-9 in July 2016 to evaluate the precision and accuracy of the hardware by testing various concentrations of DNA in microgravity compared to ground controls. Flight testing was completed between September 2016 and March 2017. Data presented will detail the hardware performance of flight testing results compared to ground controls. Future goals include additional operational ground-based testing and assay development to determine if this technology can meet spaceflight microbial monitoring requirements.

Khodadad, Christina L.↗
NASA NTRS2018

On-Board Battery Monitoring and Prognostics for Electric-Propulsion Aircraft

The reliability of the propulsion system of an aircraft is paramount for the aircraft safety and hence the aircraft health must be monitored continuously. In contrast to fuel- operated aircraft, electric battery-operated propulsion system poses specific problems, such as, the remaining battery power does not linearly decrease and cannot be measured directly. In this paper, we describe a combined monitoring and prognostics architecture that can continuously monitor all components of the electric propulsion system with respect to safety and performance properties as well as state of charge and rest of useful life for the battery. Our system combines a detailed electrochemical battery model for Li-ion batteries with a powerful prognostics engine based upon an Unscented Kalman Filter with the R2U2 monitoring device, which provides efficient observers for metric temporal logic and Bayesian reasoning. R2U2 is a real-time, realizable, responsive, unobtrusive unit, which continuously monitors sensor readings, outputs of the prognostics engine, as well as the ight software status for safety, performance, and security properties. We illustrate our architecture with two case studies, one reporting actual ight tests with an X8+ octocopter and the other a software-in-the-loop simulation with an unmanned Edge 540 electric aircraft model.

Kulkarni, Chetan↗
NASA NTRS2019

Evaluating the Operational Application of SMAP for Global Agricultural Drought Monitoring

Over the past two decades, remote sensing has made possible the routine global monitoring of surface soil moisture. Regionalagricultural drought monitoring is one of the most logicalapplication areas for such monitoring. However, remote sensing alone provides soil moisture information for only the top few centimetersof the soil profile, while agricultural drought monitoring requires knowledge of the amount of water present in the entireroot zone. The assimilation of remotely sensed soil moisture productsinto continuous soil water balance models provides a way ofaddressing this shortcoming. Here, we describe the assimilationof NASA's soil moisture active passive (SMAP) surface soil moisture data into the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) Palmer model and assess the impactof SMAP on USDA FAS drought monitoring capabilities. Theassimilation of SMAP is specifically designed to enhance the model skill and the USDA FAS drought capabilities by correcting for randomerrors inherent in its rainfall forcing data. The performanceof this SMAP-based assimilation system is evaluated using two approaches.At global scale, the accuracy of the system is assessed by examining the lagged correlation agreement between soil moistureand the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Additional regional-scale evaluation using in situ-based soil moisture estimatesis carried out at seven of the SMAP core Cal/Val sites located in theUSA. Both types of analysis demonstrate the value of assimilating SMAP into the USDA FAS Palmer model and its potential to enhance operational USDA FAS root-zone soil moisture information.

Mladenova, Iliana E.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Laser Energy Monitor for Triple-Pulse 2-μm IPDA Lidar Application

Integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) lidar is an active remote sensing technique for monitoring different atmospheric species. The technique relies on wavelength differentiation between strong and weak absorbing features normalized to the transmitted energy. An advanced 2-μm triple-pulse IPDA lidar was developed at NASA Langley Research Center for active sensing of carbon dioxide and water vapor simultaneously. The IPDA transmitter produces three successive laser pulses separated by a short interval (200 μs) with a repetition rate of 50Hz. Measurement of laser pulse energy accurately is a prerequisite for the retrieval of gas mixing ratios from IPDA. The design and calibration of a 2-μm triple-pulse laser energy monitor are presented. Due to the short interval between the three transmitted pulses, conventional thermal energy monitors underestimate the total transmitted energy. The design is based on a high speed, extended range InGaAs pin quantum detector suitable for separating the three pulse events. Pulse integration is applied for converting the detected pulse power into energy. The results obtained from the laser energy monitor were compared to an ultra-fast energy-meter reference for energy scaling and verification. High correlations between the pin energy monitor and the total transmitted energy were obtained. The objective of this development is to reduce measurement biases and errors using the triple-pulse IPDA technique.

Refaat, Tamer F.↗
NASA NTRS2018

DejaVu: A Monitoring Tool for First-Order Temporal Logic

Runtime Verification (rv) is aimed at analyzing individual execution traces and temporal behaviors observed from running programs and systems. Its traditional purpose is in detecting the lack of conformance with respect to a formal specification. While very early rv systems were based on specifications given in some form of propositional temporal logic, recent efforts have focused on monitoring so-called parametric specifications over events that carry data. Since a monitor for such specifications has to store observed data, the challenge is to have an efficient representation and manipulation of data. The fundamental problem is that the actual values of the data are not necessarily bounded or provided in advance. In this paper, we describe our monitoring tool, DejaVu, which implements our algorithm [HPU17] for monitoring first-order past linear-time temporal logic over a sequence of events that carry data. We propose the use of Binary Decision Diagrams (bdds) [Bry86] for representing and manipulating sets of observed data since (1) bdds provide highly compact representations, (2) operations over bdds, in particular complementation, are very efficient, and (3) the monitor construction for the propositional case shown in [HR02] naturally extends to bdds. Our experiments show a substantial improvement in performance compared to a related tool.

Ulus, Dogan↗
NASA NTRS2021

Southwest Water Resources: Monitoring Surface Water Extents of Remote Stock Ponds in the Southwestern United States Using Earth Observing Systems for Enhanced Water Resources Management

Due to increasingly frequent and severe drought conditions in the southwestern US, land managers and livestock producers need to monitor stock ponds with increasing regularity. The ability to assess stock pond water levels with Earth observing satellite systems would enhance monitoring efforts of partners at the US Forest Service, Arizona Department of Game and Fish, and the Diablo Trust. This study employed Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Sentinel-1 C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-SAR), and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI) to monitor surface water extent for hundreds of critical stock ponds in Arizona. Using methods adapted from previously developed image processing workflows, this project conducted a time-series analysis to capture seasonal and interannual variations in surface water area between 2013 to 2021. In addition, end users can monitor the surface water extent of stock ponds through the developed Google Earth Engine software tool called Surface Water Identification and Forecasting Tool (SWIFT). SWIFT incorporates the Automated Water Extraction Index, Modified Normalized Difference Water Index, and Tasseled Cap-Wetness Index for optical imagery and the incidence angle, VV and VH polarization bands for Sentinel-1 imagery to detect small water bodies in the study area with an overall accuracy range of 88-93%. These tools will empower our partners to monitor the extents of water in their stock ponds remotely, enabling them to develop data-informed and sustainable management solutions for decades to come.

Rainey Aberle↗
NASA NTRS2021

Using Remote Sensing to Monitor the Spring Phenology of Acadia National Park Across Elevational Gradients

Greenup dates and their responses to elevation and temperature variations across the mountains of Acadia National Park are monitored using remote sensing data, including Landsat 8 surface reflectances (at a 30-m spatial resolution) and VIIRS reflectances adjusted to a nadir view (gridded at a 500-m spatial resolution), during the 2013–2016 growing seasons. The 30-m resolution provides a better scale for studying the phenology variation across elevational gradients than the 500-m resolution, as greenup dates monitored at 30-m scale have better agreement with leaf-out dates recorded in the field alongside the north–south-oriented hiking trails on three of the park’s tallest mountains (466 m, 418 m, and 380 m), and can provide landcover-specific analysis. The spring phenology responses to temperature and elevation vary among different spatial scales. Greenup dates of Acadia National Park monitored at 30-m scale show a weak advancing trend with higher spring temperature, while greenup dates monitored at 500 m show a weak delaying trend. The species mix within landcover at 30-m scale could weaken the advancing trend detected at field observation level. The landcover mix and elevation variation within 500-m scale could alter the spring phenology response to spring temperature variation. Greenup dates monitored at both 30-m and 500-m scales vary among different elevational zones, aspects, landcovers, and years. However, the relationship between greenup dates and elevation is rather weak.

Yan Liu↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Human Monitoring for Medical Operator Assistance

Measurement of multiple biologic and non-biologic signals can be exploited for the task of monitoring the physiological status of individuals - either as patients during and following illness or injury or as those engaged in operational activities. Assessing physiological status is accomplished by measuring vital signs and wellness measures that support clinical decision-making for physical optimization, illness/injury prevention and treatment, recovery progression, and general delivery of care, or monitoring an operator's moment-to-moment personal "readiness" state. Physiological measures are beneficial for monitoring the medical state of vehicle operators, for example, through the detection of incapacitation in the realm of transportation safety. Measuring physiological signals or control inputs can also be beneficial for monitoring operator state to optimize human-autonomy-teaming performance for safety and efficiency. Similarly, monitoring a health care provider during the performance of medical procedures could provide valuable feedback on optimizing human-robot interactions and human teaming with autonomous systems. In this sense, the provider can be seen as a "Medical Operator" in the same way other "operators" drive, aviate, or control vehicles by performing manual, attention-demanding tasks during safety-critical activities.

Neuroergonomics↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

On the Advantages of Using Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 Data for Monitoring Environmental Change

NASA coordinates the Satellite Needs Working Group, dedicated to identifying, communicating, and addressing Earth observation needs of federal agencies. In 2016, the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) dataset was formulated and implemented to fulfill multiple needs. The combination of acquisitions from the Landsat and Sentinel-2 platforms results in a global dataset of surface reflectance with a temporal resolution of two days, while retaining the geometry and 30-meter spatial resolution of Landsat data. This harmonization allows for seamless integration with the 40-year archive of Landsat data. The HLS dataset is now available on the Google Earth Engine, enabling HLS utilization in various algorithms and frameworks essential for monitoring environmental change worldwide. During this presentation, we will demonstrate and discuss the advantages of using HLS data in comparison to using separate streams of Landsat and Sentinel-2 data in existing time series-based frameworks for change monitoring. Specifically, we will explore the application of HLS for continuous monitoring of deforestation using time series-based algorithms traditionally run with Landsat data. Additionally, we will showcase the benefits of HLS data for near real-time monitoring of forest disturbance in tropical regions. These examples underscore the value and utility of the HLS dataset for environmental monitoring and analysis.

Pontus Olofsson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Thin-Film Embedded Sensors for Battery Health Monitoring

Hybrid or all-electric aircraft are being developed as the next generation of aircraft to both allow new forms of aviation and decrease environmental impact. Since these types of aircraft are based on high-capacity battery technology, safe operation of these batteries becomes increasingly important. In particular, the potential for battery failure due to uncontrolled chemical reactions resulting in thermal runaway, catastrophic failure, and battery fires must be addressed in order for such battery technology to have the level of safety needed for standard aviation implementation. Efforts to ensure battery safety often involve engineering solutions that seek to contain rather than prevent such events by early detection. Such approaches increase the system weight and decrease the power per unit mass provided by the battery system. Existing methods for measuring battery parameters to determine the battery state-of-health are limited. These methods include electrical measurements of the cell current and/or voltage output as well as temperature measurements taken externally on the cell surface. Such external temperature measurements are limited in their ability to provide early warning of impending battery failure. In response, an effort to develop sensors operating internal to battery for health monitoring has been ongoing in the NASA Sensor-based Prognostics to Avoid Runaway Reactions & Catastrophic Ignition (SPARRCI) project. The basic approach associated with this sensor work is the deposition of thin film sensors on the battery separator located between the anode and cathode of the battery. These thin film sensors are then monitored to determine changes in battery parameters and health. Microfabrication techniques are employed to minimize the overall impact of the sensors on battery operation through the implementation of sensors with minimal size, weight, and power consumption. The thickness of the films, which are fabricated through physical vapor deposition (sputtering), are on the order of thousands of angstroms and can have minimal surface area. Thin film sensors for system health management have been implemented for a many decades on complex components for aerospace applications. However, the application of thin films of this type on a battery separator for internal battery monitoring applications has not previously been demonstrated to our knowledge. This paper describes the development of sensors for the internal battery monitoring through the use of thin film sensor technology. Thin metal films were successfully deposited on a battery separator polymer material with good adherence and electrical continuity. Multiple types of sensors have been deposited, as well as lead connections from the sensor to the edge of the separator material. The ability of these thin film sensors immersed in electrolyte to perform multiple types of battery parameter measurements has been demonstrated. For example, a multiparameter sensor system measured multiple properties simultaneously inside of a pouch cell over a wide temperature range. Further, real time measurement of interior temperature changes in a battery pouch cell with an integrated interior temperature sensor was demonstrated. These changes include detecting a fault in the battery (shorting) in situ with rapid response time (less than a minute) corresponding to a more limited response by a temperature sensor mounted externally. Other aspects of monitoring battery health were also explored, such as real-time measurement of simulated dendrite growth/metal deposition by sensor on separator material demonstrated. Future efforts will include improvements in the durability of the sensor structure to allow introduction of the approach into standard battery fabrication techniques. Overall, this work is a step forward in providing a method to prevent catastrophic battery failures and provide a foundation for safer, lighter, and higher energy batteries for the electric aircraft industry.

thin film battery health↗
NASA NTRS2024

Hypergol Maintenance Facility North, SWMU 090, Year 3 Air Sparge System Performance Monitoring Report, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

This Performance Monitoring Report (PMR) presents Year 3 Air Sparge (AS) System operation, maintenance, and monitoring (OM&M) activities and performance monitoring results for the AS Interim Measure (IM) at the Hypergol Maintenance Facility North (HMFN) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. HMFN has been designated Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 090 under the KSC Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action Program. The timeframe for activities included in this report extends from September 2022 to August 2023. The HMFN AS IM was implemented in 2019-2020 to treat a chlorinated solvent groundwater plume that resulted from historical operations supporting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Program. The system includes 213 AS wells, with screen depths ranging from 25 feet to 45 feet below land surface (bls) and treats approximately 1.62 acres of contaminated groundwater. The objective of the AS IM is to actively reduce groundwater concentrations exceeding Florida Department of Environmental Protection Natural Attenuation Default Concentrations (NADCs) (identified as the High Concentration Plume [HCP]) to levels that facilitate transition into a Long-Term Monitoring program. The AS IM targets all of the HCP, except for a source zone area within the HCP where trichloroethene (TCE) concentrations exceed 11,000 micrograms per liter (μg/L) at depths greater than 45 feet bls. This is because site lithology was found to not be conducive to the AS treatment technology at these deeper depths. NASA will re-visit plans for potentially utilizing another remedial technology for residual deeper contamination following completion of the AS IM. OM&M activities and results from Year 3 indicate that the AS system at HMFN is operating as designed and is meeting performance criteria. Groundwater performance monitoring results indicate that following the third year of AS system operation, TCE concentrations in wells across all treated depth intervals have been reduced by an average of more than 99 percent. Overall, the areal extent of the plume showed a reduction following Year 3 of AS operations; however, continued operation of the AS system is required to meet the IM objective.

VOCs↗
NASA NTRS2026

The Future of in-Situ Sequencing-Based Microbial Monitoring: Development of a Shelf-Stable Method for Artemis and Beyond

Microbial monitoring onboard the International Space Station (ISS) is essential for assessing the efficiency of the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) and providing insight into potential risk to both crew and spacecraft. Historically, this monitoring required the need to culture organisms onboard, return these cultures to Earth, and then complete the identifications, a process that would take months. Over the past decade, and through numerous payloads, advances in molecular biology have enabled in-flight microbial identifications using nanopore sequencing. The swab-to-sequencer method resulting from these efforts was transitioned from research to operations for microbial monitoring under the Crew Health Care Systems (CHeCS) BioMole. Collectively, these accomplishments have propelled the swab-to-sequencer method to be selected as the Microbial Surface Monitor (MSM) for Gateway, as well as a payload on Artemis IV. However, the lack of cold stowage availability for Artemis requires modifications to the entire method due to the thermal instability of the reagents required for sample preparation. To achieve this, new development, optimization, and validations were undertaken. Key considerations included enzyme concentration, buffer compatibility, and equal or enhanced sensitivity and specificity. At each step, thorough side-by-side comparisons with the current ISS method were performed. The development of a robust shelf-stable method will ensure continued sequencing-based microbial monitoring for Artemis and beyond, providing data in near real-time, enhancing risk response time, and yielding clear insight into the microbiome of spacecraft.

Christian G Mena↗
DOE OSTI2026

The future of subsurface monitoring: AEC’s breakthroughs in CCS technology

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged as a key solution in the fight against climate change. However, for CCS to succeed, it is crucial to ensure that the sequestered CO2 stays safely trapped underground. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has emphasized the need for advancements in subsurface monitoring, measurement, reporting, and verification. Aside from caprock integrity failure, the other primary failure points usually involve defective cement in the casing annulus of wellbores or plugged and abandoned wells. In addition, many energy producers (e.g., oil and gas, geothermal) and storage and disposal operators (e.g., H2 and water) must deal with the same issue. Poorly placed or degraded cement can create pathways for gas or fluid to escape from casing annuli and in plugged and abandoned or orphan wells, posing environmental risks. Yet, a reliable and cost-effective way to monitor cement and well integrity over multiple decades is still unavailable. Traditional geophysical methods like 4D seismic imaging and surface-based electromagnetic monitoring lack the resolution and accuracy for detecting these types of failures (Vasco et al., 2022; Fawad and Mondol, 2021). Wireline logging is expensive to run continuously and is obtrusive to the operation. While fiber optics can potentially be a solution, its bulkiness can significantly compromise the cement's integrity. To address these challenges, the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC) at The University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology (the Bureau) has been pioneering research in subsurface monitoring using its portfolio of distributed autonomous microfabricated sensors for harsh subsurface environments since 2008. A class of these microsensors [System on a Chip (SoC)] can be mixed in cement and permanently placed without compromising the cement column; the sensors would then communicate with each other or a data acquisition (DAQ) master node. Another class of the AEC microsensors can be fully autonomous, with rechargeable micro-batteries capable of exceeding 100°C, flash memory, and, currently, a pressure and temperature sensor. They are designed to circulate in mud, geothermal fluids, U-loops, or pipelines. They can log data into memory and are unobtrusive to operations. Our team has been working on a multi-year DOE-funded project (DE-FE0031856)—supported by $2.95M in federal funding and $0.75M in cost-matching from the AEC—to demonstrate SoC sensor utility for CO2 leakage monitoring in CCS applications. This multi-institutional collaboration developed a novel sensing architecture utilizing radiofrequency (RF) microsensors embedded within the cement sheath. These sensors detect CO2 migration and are interrogated via a Smart Casing Collar (SCC).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Influence of background sources and topographic resolution in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model on xenon plume characteristics at monitoring stations

For many atmospheric monitoring applications, networks of measurement sites—such as the radionuclide stations of the International Monitoring System—can be sparse. With measurement locations potentially hundreds to thousands of kilometers from a release it is important to quantify the effects of physical processes on transport and dispersion of plumes between source and measurement locations. This study addresses the effects of background sources and topography resolution near the release location of radionuclides. We use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with inline chemistry to investigate (1) how an additional, time-varying source of 133 Xe, such as an operational medical isotope production facility, contributes to activity concentration measurements at monitoring sites, and (2) how complex topography influences on atmospheric conditions near emission sources impact plume concentrations at varying distances from the source. Two 133 Xe emission sources, including (1) a high flux rate of short duration representing an explosive event, and (2) a variable and continuous background source, are simulated. The continuous background source contributes significantly to total 133 Xe concentrations at several monitoring stations. Further, a WRF simulation at 9 km horizontal resolution is compared with a nested grid simulation, where the innermost domain has a resolution of 1 km. Increased topographic resolution leads to an improved representation of plume responses to local winds, with topographic influences greatest at locations closest to the sources. Differences between the two domain resolutions decrease at greater distances from the sources, as plumes have time to spread and mix and are influenced by synoptic scale circulation patterns that are represented similarly in both simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Real-time well integrity monitoring in underground gas storage wells using distributed temperature and strain sensing: a field demonstration

Here, this article presents the first successful field demonstration of a combined distributed temperature and strain sensing (DTSS) system installed directly on newly replaced tubing in a 5400-ft-deep operational underground gas storage well. The DTSS system uses a single optical fiber to monitor temperature and strain in real-time, providing a cost-effective solution for long-term well integrity assessment. In this study, the strain–stress correlation of the tubing—representative of material behavior analysis—is investigated as a potential method for monitoring tubing integrity throughout its lifetime. Moreover, the DTSS system’s capability to support both continuous and discrete monitoring is evaluated by comparing future data with historical records, enabling the early detection of issues such as material fatigue, corrosion, or deformation. Overall, the work examines the effectiveness and scalability of the DTSS system for real-time monitoring of well operations and integrity in a newly replaced well.

Distributed Strain Sensing↗