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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

An improved algorithm of image processing technique for film thickness measurement in a horizontal stratified gas-liquid two-phase flow

Due to the importance of the two-phase flow researches for the industrial safety analysis, many researchers developed various methods and techniques to study the two-phase flow phenomena on the industrial cases, such as in the chemical, petroleum and nuclear industries cases. One of the developing methods and techniques is image processing technique. This technique is widely used in the two-phase flow researches due to the non-intrusive capability to process a lot of visualization data which are contain many complexities. Moreover, this technique allows to capture direct-visual information data of the flow which are difficult to be captured by other methods and techniques. The main objective of this paper is to present an improved algorithm of image processing technique from the preceding algorithm for the stratified flow cases. The present algorithm can measure the film thickness (h{sub L}) of stratified flow as well as the geometrical properties of the interfacial waves with lower processing time and random-access memory (RAM) usage than the preceding algorithm. Also, the measurement results are aimed to develop a high quality database of stratified flow which is scanty. In the present work, the measurement results had a satisfactory agreement with the previous works.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

A combination interferometric and morphological image processing approach to rapid quality assessment of additively manufactured cellular truss core components

Advanced manufacturing (AM) processes such as laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) are increasingly capable of fabricating components with useful and unprecedented mechanical properties by incorporating complex internal bracing structures. From the standpoint of quality control and assessment, however, internally complex assemblies present significant build-verification challenges. Here we propose a hybrid approach to the inspection involving the application of computer-aided speckle interferometry (CASI) and morphological image processing as a rapid, inexpensive, and facile method for AM quality control. The described methodology has low capital equipment costs, is full-field and non-contact, can be used in an industrial setting, and has very low requirements in terms of operator training and expertise. Consisting primarily of the combination of image processing software with a simple optical system of variable sensitivity, the method is shown to be effective for inspection of a titanium honeycomb component subjected to differential pressure. Results are compared to those achieved with computed tomography (CT), immersion ultrasound testing (UT), and optical holographic interferometry. Here we propose several possible processing strategies for automated quality assessment based on this powerful hybrid approach.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

3D Optical Coherence Tomography image processing in BISCAP: characterization of biofilm structure and properties

Abstract Motivation BISCAP is a state-of-the-art tool for automatically characterizing biofilm images obtained from Optical Coherence Tomography. Limited availability of other software tools is reported in the field. BISCAP’s first version processes 2D images only. Processing 3D images is a problem of greater scientific relevance since it deals with the entire structure of biofilms instead of their 2D slices. Results Building on the image-processing principles and algorithms proposed earlier for 2D images, these were adapted to the 3D case, and a more general implementation of BISCAP was developed. The primary goal concerns the extension of the initial methodology to incorporate the depth axis in 3D images; multiple improvements were also made to boost computational performance. The calculation of structural properties and visual outputs was extended to offer new insights into the 3D structure of biofilms. BISCAP was tested using 3D images of biofilms with different morphologies, consistently delivering accurate characterizations of 3D structures in a few minutes using standard laptop machines. Low user dependency is required for image analysis. Availability and implementation BISCAP is available from https://github.com/diogonarciso/BISCAP. All images used in the tutorials and the validation examples are available from https://web.fe.up.pt/∼fgm/biscap3d.

Narciso, Diogo A. C. (ORCID:0000000227767477)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Study of the film boiling heat transfer and two-phase flow interface behavior using image processing

Here, in this study, based on a small-scale quench test facility, the two-phase flow interface behavior during quench transients is visualized and analyzed utilizing an image processing framework. The high-fidelity experimental results obtained for two-phase flow in the current framework can support various studies both in the time domain and in the frequency domain. In particular, visualization of the data obtained from different heating surfaces under different test conditions are used to perform a full-scale transient 2-D vapor film reconstruction. The liquid-vapor interface variations in various heat transfer regimes as well as at the initial film breakup point can be directly obtained through the processed data. Moreover, the temporal variation of the interfacial wave frequency approaching quench is investigated in detail. Based on the high-resolution data obtained for the liquid-vapor interface, the detailed phase velocity and temperature profiles are obtained through theoretic analysis, based on which the film boiling heat transfer coefficient (HTC) can be determined. In addition, an improved film boiling HTC model is developed considering the effects of wall superheat, liquid subcooling temperature, vapor film thickness as well as fluid properties. The model is found to predict film boiling HTC well within 15% error.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Thermal Image Processing for Feature Extraction from Encapsulated Phase Change Materials

Encapsulated inorganic particles with high melting points (>300 °C) are desired as high-temperature Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for next-generation Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) systems. One of the many challenges during the development of PCMs is to achieve a high throughput that in turn depends on accurately modeling the relation between process parameters and geometric & thermal properties of the PCMs particle. During the production of the PCMs, a high-speed infrared camera is used to acquire images of the encapsulated material under controlled illumination conditions. This research article focuses on the development of image processing techniques for both geometric and thermal feature extraction during the development of the PCMs. A user-friendly GUI has been designed in MATLAB and preliminary experimental results have demonstrated that the method is fast, accurate and reliable for a high throughput production. The extracted features will be used to develop Machine Learning (ML) models to predict the geometric and thermal properties of the PCM based on the process parameter settings. The ML model will accelerate the search for the optimized process settings to boost the throughput of the production.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Image processing tools for petabyte-scale light sheet microscopy data

Light sheet microscopy is a powerful technique for high-speed three-dimensional imaging of subcellular dynamics and large biological specimens. However, it often generates datasets ranging from hundreds of gigabytes to petabytes in size for a single experiment. Conventional computational tools process such images far slower than the time to acquire them and often fail outright due to memory limitations. To address these challenges, we present PetaKit5D, a scalable software solution for efficient petabyte-scale light sheet image processing. This software incorporates a suite of commonly used processing tools that are optimized for memory and performance. Notable advancements include rapid image readers and writers, fast and memory-efficient geometric transformations, high-performance Richardson–Lucy deconvolution and scalable Zarr-based stitching. These features outperform state-of-the-art methods by over one order of magnitude, enabling the processing of petabyte-scale image data at the full teravoxel rates of modern imaging cameras. The software opens new avenues for biological discoveries through large-scale imaging experiments.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Image processing occupancy sensor

A system and method of detecting occupants in a building automation system environment using image based occupancy detection and position determinations. In one example, the system includes an image processing occupancy sensor that detects the number and position of occupants within a space that has controllable building elements such as lighting and ventilation diffusers. Based on the position and location of the occupants, the system can finely control the elements to optimize conditions for the occupants, optimize energy usage, among other advantages.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Identification of Low Coronal Sources of “Stealth” Coronal Mass Ejections Using New Image Processing Techniques

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are generally associated with low coronal signatures (LCSs), such as flares, filament eruptions, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) waves, or jets. A number of recent studies have reported the existence of stealth CMEs as events without LCSs, possibly due to observational limitations. Our study focuses on a set of 40 stealth CMEs identified from a study by D’Huys et al. New image processing techniques are applied to high-cadence, multi-instrument sets of images spanning the onset and propagation time of each of these CMEs to search for possible LCSs. Twenty-three of these events are identified as small, low-mass, unstructured blobs or puffs, often occurring in the aftermath of a large CME, but associated with LCSs such as small flares, jets, or filament eruptions. Of the larger CMEs, seven are associated with jets and eight with filament eruptions. Several of these filament eruptions are different from the standard model of an erupting filament/flux tube in that they are eruptions of large, faint flux tubes that seem to exist at large heights for a long time prior to their slow eruption. For two of these events, we see an eruption in Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph C2 images and the consequent changes at the bottom edge of the eruption in EUV images. All 40 events in our study are associated with some form of LCS. We conclude that stealth CMEs arise from observational and processing limitations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Qualification and Quantification of Porosity at the Top of the Fuel Pins in Metallic Fuels Using Image Processing

Approximately 130,000 metal fuel pins were irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) during its 30 years of operation to develop and characterize existing and prospective fuels. For many of the metal fuel irradiation experiments, neutron radiography imaging was performed to characterize fuel behavior, such as fuel axial expansion. While several fuel expansion results obtained from neutron radiography imaging have been published, the analysis of neutron radiography for the purpose of describing statistical properties of porous matter formed on top of the fuel pins, also referred to as fluff in previous publications, is significantly less represented in the literature with just a single paper so far. This study aims to validate and augment results reported in previous publications using automated image processing. The paper describes the statistical properties of the porous matter in terms of nine parameters derived from radiography images and correlates those parameters with such fuel properties as composition, expansion, temperature, and burnup. The reported results are based on 1097 fuel pins of eight different fuel compositions. For three major fuel types, U-10Zr, U-8Pu-10Zr, and U-19Pu-10Zr, a clear negative correlation is found between the Pu content and five parameters describing the amount of porous matter generated. The parameters describing granularity properties, however, showed either negative correlation or nonlinear dependency from fuel composition. The parameters describing the amount showed a positive correlation with fuel axial expansion, while granularity parameters showed a negative correlation with axial expansion. The dependency on cladding temperature was found to be weak. A positive correlation is demonstrated for volume parameters and fuel burnup. In general, reported results confirm and validate findings published in previous studies using a much larger number of pins and automated processing techniques, which easily lend themselves to reproducibility, thus avoiding subjective bias.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

3D Tomography and Image Processing Using Fast Neutrons Final Report

This document is the final report for project OR16-ML-3DTomography-PD3Jb, “3D Tomography and Image Processing Using Fast Neutrons.” This project was motivated by the availability of three-dimensional (3D) tomographic neutron transmission and induced-reaction data following the development of associated-particle imaging (API) systems with two-dimensional (2D) or “area” neutron detectors such as the Advanced Portable Neutron Imaging System, which is capable of simultaneous measurement of transmission and induced-reaction neutrons.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Supplementary material for manuscript: Microcomputed X-ray Tomographic Imaging and Image Processing for Microstructural Characterization of Explosives

This data contains the supplemental information that will be accessible to the public from the paper “Microcomputed X-ray Tomographic Imaging and Image Processing for Microstructural Characterization of Explosives”. The data set contains the reconstructed slices for the 3D images of three different high explosives including: HMX-HTPB, PBX 9501 and PBX 9502. The data sets are folders of reconstructed tiffs showing the microstructure (crystals, binder, voids) and a segmented data set of each. Finally, a .gif movie is also present that plays the slices sequentially. The folders contain the voxel size information. See the manuscript for more details.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Investigating the dielectric properties of barium titanate nanocomposites using transmission electron microscopy image processing

Abstract Barium titanate (BTO) is a ferroelectric perovskite material used in energy storage applications because of its high dielectric constant. A previous study showed that the dielectric constant for BTO nanoparticles drastically increases to over 15,000 at a particle size of 70 nm. This result is highly contested, but its implications to energy storage motivated our investigation into the dielectric constants of BTO nanoparticles that are incorporated into a polymer matrix. We developed a novel method of using image processing techniques on transmission electron microscope images of BTO-polymer nanocomposites. Data on the positions, shapes, sizes, and orientations of BTO nanoparticles were used to build more realistic computational models that simulate the dielectric behavior of the nanocomposites. Here, we investigate the relationship between regions of enhanced electric field and the composite dielectric constant.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

WE-EF-303-04: An Advanced Image Processing Method to Improve the Spatial Resolution of Proton Radiographies

Purpose: We present an optimization method to improve the spatial resolution and the water equivalent thickness accuracy of proton radiographies. Methods: The method is designed for imaging systems measuring only the residual range of protons without relying on tracker detectors to determine the beam trajectory before and after the target. Specifically, the method was used for an imaging set-up consisting of a stack of 61 parallel-plate ionization chambers (PPIC) working as a range telescope. The method uses a decomposition approach of the residual range signal measured by the PPIC and constructs subimages with small size pixels geometrically rearranged and appropriately averaged to be merged into a final single radiography. The method was tested using Monte Carlo simulated and experimental proton radiographies of a PMMA step phantom and an anthropomorphic head phantom. Results: For the step phantom, the effective spatial resolution was found to be 4 and 3 times higher than the nominal resolution for the simulated and experimental radiographies, respectively. For the head phantom, a gamma index was calculated to quantify the conformity of the simulated proton radiographies with a digitally reconstructed X-ray radiography convolved with a Gaussian kernel equal to the proton beam spot-size. For DTA=2.5 mm and RD=2.5%, the passing ratio was 100%/85% for the optimized/non-optimized case, respectively. An extension of the method allows reducing the dose given to the patient during radiography acquisition. We show that despite a dose reduction of 25 times (leading to a dose of 0.016 mGy for the current imaging set-up), the image quality of the optimized radiographies remains fairly unaffected for both the simulated and experimental results. Conclusion: The optimization method leads to a significant increase of the spatial resolution allowing recovering image details that are unresolved in non-optimized radiographies. These results represent a major step towards clinical application of proton radiography.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗