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SAND2021-14232 O The ScanSilc/XTK Plugin interfaces between Scanna ScanSilc digital radiography hardware and the X-Ray ToolKit® (XTK) software. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.
Rocket engine hot-fire ground testing is necessary to understand component performance, reliability and engine system interactions during development. The J-2X upper stage engine completed a series of developmental hot-fire tests that derived performance of the engine and components, validated analytical models and provided the necessary data to identify where design changes, process improvements and technology development were needed. The J-2X development engines were heavily instrumented to provide the data necessary to support these activities which enabled the team to investigate any anomalies experienced during the test program. This paper describes the development of an optical digital image correlation technique to augment the data provided by traditional strain gauges which are prone to debonding at elevated temperatures and limited to localized measurements. The feasibility of this optical measurement system was demonstrated during full scale hot-fire testing of J-2X, during which a digital image correlation system, incorporating a pair of high speed cameras to measure three-dimensional, real-time displacements and strains was installed and operated under the extreme environments present on the test stand. The camera and facility setup, pre-test calibrations, data collection, hot-fire test data collection and post-test analysis and results are presented in this paper.
The UTA High Energy Physics Group conducted generic detector development based on large area, very thin and high sensitivity gas detector using gas electron multiplier (GEM) technology. This is in preparation for a use as a sensitive medium for sampling calorimeters in future collider experiments at the Energy Frontier as well as part of the tracking detector in Intensity Frontier experiments. We also have been monitoring the long term behavior of one of the prototype detectors (30cmx30cm) read out by the SLAC-developed 13-bit KPiX analog chip over three years and have made presentations of results at various APS meetings. While the important next step was the development of large area (1m x 1m) GEM planes, we also have looked into opportunities of applying this technology to precision tracking detectors to significantly improve the performance of the Range Stack detector for CP violation experiments and to provide an amplification layer for the liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber in the LBNE experiment. We have jointly developed 33cmx100cm large GEM foils with the CERN gas detector development group to construct 33cm x100cm unit chambers. Three of these unit chambers will be put together to form a 1m x 1m detector plane. Following characterization of one 33cmx100cm unit chamber prototype, a total of five 1m x 1m planes will be constructed and inserted into an existing 1m3 RPC DHCAL stack to test the performance of the new GEM DHCAL in particle beams. The large area GEM detector we planned to develop in this proposal not only gives an important option to DHCAL for future collider experiments but also the potential to expand its use to Intensity Frontier and Cosmic Frontier experiments as high efficiency, high amplification anode planes for liquid Argon time projection chambers. Finally, thanks to its sensitivity to X-rays and other neutral radiations and its light-weight characteristics, the large area GEM has a great potential for the use in medical imaging and homeland security, as well as satellite based astronomy experiments.
The US Army Fault-Tolerant Architecture (AFTA) has been defined to meet real-time fault-tolerant processing requirements of future Army applications. AFTA is the enabling technology that will allow the Army to configure existing processors and other hardware to provide high throughput and ultrahigh reliability necessary for terrain-following/terrain-avoidance (TF/TA) and nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight control and other advanced Army applications. A brief description of AFTA's relevant attributes and theory of operation is given. The systems engineering models which permit the configuration on an AFTA to meet mission requirements as they evolve are presented, along with an example of their use to engineer an AFTA configuration. The resulting AFTA configuration, its predicted throughput, reliability, availability, weight, power, volume, and life-cycle cost impact, and the effects of possible engineering tradeoffs are presented.
Abstract 1: Geographic information systems emerged as a computer application in the late 1960s, led in part by projects at ORNL. The concept of a GIS has shifted through time in response to new applications and new technologies, and is now part of a much larger world of geospatial technology. This presentation discusses the relationship of GIS and estimating hourly and seasonal energy consumption profiles in the building sector at spatial scales down to the individual parcel. The method combines annual building energy simulations for city-specific prototypical buildings and commonly available geospatial data in a GIS framework. Abstract 2: This presentation focuses on 3D printing technologies and how they have rapidly evolved over the past couple of years. At a basic level, 3D printing produces physical models quickly and easily from 3D CAD, BIM (Building Information Models), and other digital data. Many AEC firms have adopted 3D printing as part of commercial building design development and project delivery. This presentation includes an overview of 3D printing, discusses its current use in building design, and talks about its future in relation to the HVAC industry. Abstract 3: This presentation discusses additive manufacturing and how it is revolutionizing the design of commercial and residential facilities. Additive manufacturing utilizes a broad range of direct manufacturing technologies, including electron beam melting, ultrasonic, extrusion, and laser metal deposition for rapid prototyping. While there is some overlap with the 3D printing talk, this presentation focuses on the materials aspect of additive manufacturing and also some of the more advanced technologies involved with rapid prototyping. These technologies include design of carbon fiber composites, lightweight metals processing, transient field processing, and more.
Fulfilling NASA's new vision for space exploration requires the development of sustainable, flexible and fault tolerant spacecraft control systems. The traditional development paradigm consists of the purchase or fabrication of hardware boards with fixed processor and/or Digital Signal Processing (DSP) components interconnected via a standardized bus system. This is followed by the purchase and/or development of software. This paradigm has several disadvantages for the development of systems to support NASA's new vision. Building a system to be fault tolerant increases the complexity and decreases the performance of included software. Standard bus design and conventional implementation produces natural bottlenecks. Configuring hardware components in systems containing common processors and DSPs is difficult initially and expensive or impossible to change later. The existence of Hardware Description Languages (HDLs), the recent increase in performance, density and radiation tolerance of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and Intellectual Property (IP) Cores provides the technology for reprogrammable Systems on a Chip (SOC). This technology supports a paradigm better suited for NASA's vision. Hardware and software production are melded for more effective development; they can both evolve together over time. Designers incorporating this technology into future avionics can benefit from its flexibility. Systems can be designed with improved fault isolation and tolerance using hardware instead of software. Also, these designs can be protected from obsolescence problems where maintenance is compromised via component and vendor availability.To investigate the flexibility of this technology, the core of the Central Processing Unit and Input/Output Processor of the Space Shuttle AP101S Computer were prototyped in Verilog HDL and synthesized into an Altera Stratix FPGA.
Seismologists from Kazakhstan, Russia, and the United States have rescued the Soviet-era archive of nuclear explosion seismograms recorded at Borovoye in northern Kazakhstan during the period 1966–1996. The signals had been stored on about 8000 magnetic tapes, which were held at the recording observatory. After hundreds of man-years of work, these digital waveforms together with significant metadata are now available via the project URL, namely http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/Data/ as a modern open database, of use to diverse communities. Three different sets of recording systems were operated at Borovoye, each using several different seismometers and different gain levels. For some explosions, more than twenty different channels of data are available. A first data release, in 2001, contained numerous glitches and lacked many instrument responses, but could still be used for measuring accurate arrival times and for comparison of the strengths of different types of seismic waves. The project URL also links to our second major data release, for nuclear explosions in Eurasia recorded in Borovoye, in which the data have been deglitched, all instrument responses have been included, and recording systems are described in detail. This second dataset consists of more than 3700 waveforms (digital seismograms) from almost 500 nuclear explosions in Eurasia, many of them recorded at regional distances. It is important as a training set for the development and evaluation of seismological methods of discriminating between earthquakes and underground explosions, and can be used for assessment of three-dimensional models of the Earth’s interior structure.
Due to limited crew availability to support science and the large number of experiments to be operated simultaneously, telescience is key to a successful International Space Station (ISS) science program. Crew, operations personnel at NASA centers, and researchers at universities and companies around the world must work closely together to perform scientific experiments on-board ISS. NASA has initiated use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to supplement the existing HVoDS mission voice communications system used by researchers. The Internet Voice Distribution System (IVoDS) connects researchers to mission support "loops" or conferences via Internet Protocol networks such as the high-speed Internet 2. Researchers use IVoDS software on personal computers to talk with operations personnel at NASA centers. IVoDS also has the capability, if authorized, to allow researchers to communicate with the ISS crew during experiment operations. NODS was developed by Marshall Space Flight Center with contractors A2 Technology, Inc. FVC, Lockheed- Martin, and VoIP Group. IVoDS is currently undergoing field-testing with full deployment for up to 50 simultaneous users expected in 2002. Research is currently being performed to take full advantage of the digital world - the Personal Computer and Internet Protocol networks - to qualitatively enhance communications among ISS operations personnel. In addition to the current voice capability, video and data-sharing capabilities are being investigated. Major obstacles being addressed include network bandwidth capacity and strict security requirements. Techniques being investigated to reduce and overcome these obstacles include emerging audio-video protocols and network technology including multicast and quality-of-service.
NASA field center Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, AL), has invested in advanced wireless sensor technology development. Developments for a wireless microcontroller back-end were primarily focused on the commercial Synapse Wireless family of devices. These devices have many useful features for NASA applications, good characteristics and the ability to be programmed Over-The-Air (OTA). The effort has focused on two widely used sensor types, mechanical strain gauges and thermal sensors. Mechanical strain gauges are used extensively in NASA structural testing and even on vehicle instrumentation systems. Additionally, thermal monitoring with many types of sensors is extensively used. These thermal sensors include thermocouples of all types, resistive temperature devices (RTDs), diodes and other thermal sensor types. The wireless thermal board will accommodate all of these types of sensor inputs to an analog front end. The analog front end on each of the sensors interfaces to the Synapse wireless microcontroller, based on the Atmel Atmega128 device. Once the analog sensor output data is digitized by the onboard analog to digital converter (A/D), the data is available for analysis, computation or transmission. Various hardware features allow custom embedded software to manage battery power to enhance battery life. This technology development fits nicely into using numerous additional sensor front ends, including some of the low-cost printed circuit board capacitive moisture content sensors currently being developed at Auburn University.
NASA field center Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, AL), has invested in advanced wireless sensor technology development. Developments for a wireless microcontroller back-end were primarily focused on the commercial Synapse Wireless family of devices. These devices have many useful features for NASA applications, good characteristics and the ability to be programmed Over-The-Air (OTA). The effort has focused on two widely used sensor types, mechanical strain gauges and thermal sensors. Mechanical strain gauges are used extensively in NASA structural testing and even on vehicle instrumentation systems. Additionally, thermal monitoring with many types of sensors is extensively used. These thermal sensors include thermocouples of all types, resistive temperature devices (RTDs), diodes and other thermal sensor types. The wireless thermal board will accommodate all of these types of sensor inputs to an analog front end. The analog front end on each of the sensors interfaces to the Synapse wireless microcontroller, based on the Atmel Atmega128 device. Once the analog sensor output data is digitized by the onboard analog to digital converter (A/D), the data is available for analysis, computation or transmission. Various hardware features allow custom embedded software to manage battery power to enhance battery life. This technology development fits nicely into using numerous additional sensor front ends, including some of the low-cost printed circuit board capacitive moisture content sensors currently being developed at Auburn University.
A three dimensional integrated circuit is composed of multiple tiers of integrated electronics and sensors integrated vertically by wafer bonding, thinning and insertion of through-silicon-vias. The technologies associated with three dimensional integrated circuits can provide new capabilities for high energy physics and x-ray imaging experiments. These include finer pixel pitch, lower interconnect capacitance, the ability to separate analog and digital functions, and better power distribution and connectivity. In this paper we review the status of 3DIC demonstration projects at Fermilab, discuss several possible applications, and summarize the current availability of commercial processes. Results of a three-tier demonstration project that includes designs for x-ray imaging, CMS track triggering, and ILC vertex are described. We discuss the status of several ongoing 3D projects and prospects for future evolution of the technology.
Consumer technology, over the last decade, has begun to encompass devices that enable us to figure out where we are, which way we are pointing, observe the world around us, and store and transmit this information to wherever we want. Once separate consumer products such as GPS units, digital cameras and mobile phones are now combined into the modern day Smartphone. Since these capabilities are remarkably similar to those required for the multi-million dollar satellites - so why not use a multihundred dollar Smartphone instead? The PhoneSat project of NASA Ames Research Center is developing technology demonstrations utilizing these extraordinary advances to show just how simple and cheap Space can be. The style of development revolves around the "release early, release often" Silicon Valley mentality. PhoneSat is a series of 1U CubeSat size spacecrafts that use an off-the-shelf Smartphone as their onboard computer. By doing so, PhoneSat takes advantage of the high computational capability, large memory as well as ultra-tiny sensors like high-resolution cameras and navigation devices that Smartphones offer. Along with a Smartphone, PhoneSat is equipped with other commercially available technology products, such as medical brushless motors that are used as reaction wheels. Over the four years that NASA Ames Research Center has been developing the PhoneSat project, different suborbital and orbital flight activities have proven the validity of this revolutionary approach. In early 2013, the PhoneSat project launched the first triage of PhoneSats into LEO. In the five day orbital life time, the nano-satellites flew the first functioning Smartphone based satellites (using the Nexus One and Nexus S phones), the cheapest satellite (a total parts cost below $3,500) and one of the fastest on-board processors (CPU speed of 1GHz). In late 2013, the PhoneSat project launched an improved version of its bus to a higher altitude orbit which provided data about the overall system's tolerance to the space environment. In this paper, an overview of the PhoneSat project as well as a summary of the in-flight experimental results is presented. NASA Ames Research Center is carrying on its effort to bring a paradigm shift in the way we conceive Space exploration, this new approach is certainly incarnated by PhoneSat. A set of eight PhoneSat-based CubeSats is manifested to launch in 2014 with the purpose of demonstrating new technical capabilities and being a pathfinder for future Spacecraft technology missions.
An intrinsic silicon charge injection device (CID) television sensor array has been used in conjunction with a CaMoO4 colinear tunable acousto optic filter, a 61 inch reflector, a sophisticated computer system, and a digital color TV scan converter/computer to produce near IR images of Saturn and Jupiter with 10A spectral resolution and approximately 3 inch spatial resolution. The CID camera has successfully obtained digitized 100 x 100 array images with 5 minutes of exposure time, and slow-scanned readout to a computer. Details of the equipment setup, innovations, problems, experience, data and final equipment performance limits are given.
The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is leading a transformative initiative to accelerate advanced reactor deployment by fundamentally reimagining how nuclear safety basis documentation is developed, reviewed, and maintained. Traditional Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) processes for DOE-authorized facilities rely on static, document-centric workflows that consume significant time and resources, exemplified by recent major licensing efforts requiring hundreds of thousands of staff hours and millions of pages of documentation review. These conventional approaches create barriers to the rapid, cost-effective deployment of advanced reactors that America's future energy needs demand. NRIC's DOE Authorization Digital Transformation Project addresses these challenges through an innovative framework that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), digital engineering, and systems-based data management into a cohesive digital ecosystem. This white paper presents NRIC's methodology for evaluating AI-enabled document generation capabilities within this broader digital infrastructure, using the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) facility as a pilot case study. The evaluation will assess an AI tool's ability to generate a Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (PDSA) through progressive integration stages—from standalone document processing to full digital thread connectivity—while maintaining rigorous verification, validation, and regulatory acceptance standards. By establishing dynamic, traceable connections between design data and safety documentation, NRIC's approach has the potential to reduce both document development time and regulatory review cycles by as much as 50%, while simultaneously improving accuracy, consistency, and traceability. This initiative represents a critical step toward establishing reusable digital infrastructure that reactor developers can leverage to accelerate their path from concept to commercial operation, directly supporting NRIC's mission to demonstrate and deploy advanced nuclear energy technologies.
The Advanced Communications (AC) for Aeronautics research at the NASA Glenn Research Center integrates both aeronautics and space communications technologies to achieve the national objective of upgrading the present National Airspace System infrastructure by responding to the agency's aviation capacity and safety goals. One concept for future air traffic management, free flight, presents a significantly increased demand for communications systems capacity and performance in comparison to current air traffic management practices. Current aeronautical communications systems are incapable of supporting the anticipated demands, and the new digital data communications links that are being developed, or are in the early stages of implementation, are not primarily designed to carry the data-intensive free flight air traffic management (ATM) communications loads. Emerging satellite communications technologies are the best potential long-term solution to provide the capacity and performance necessary to enable a mature free flight concept to be deployed. NASA AC/ATM funded the development of a Boeing-designed Ku-band transmit phased-array antenna, a combined in-house and contract effort. Glenn designed and integrated an Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Communications terminal based on the transmit phased-array antenna and a companion receive phased-array antenna previously developed by Boeing.
Here, we report the first demonstration of using the Quantum Instrumentation and Control Kit (QICK) system on RFSoC-FPGA technology to drive the electro-optic intensity modulator that generate time-bin entangled photon pairs and to detect the photon signals. With the QICK system, we achieve high levels of performance metrics including coincidence-to-accidental ratio exceeding 150, and entanglement visibility exceeding 95%, consistent with performance metrics achieved using conventional waveform generators. We also demonstrate simultaneous detector readout using the digitization functional of QICK, achieving internal system synchronization time resolution of 3.2 ps. The work reported in this paper represents an explicit demonstration of the feasibility for replacing commercial waveform generators and time taggers with RFSoC-FPGA technology in the operation of a quantum network, representing a cost reduction of more than an order of magnitude.
Nowadays, transmission system operators require higher degree of observability in real-time to gain situational awareness and improve the decision-making process to guarantee a safe and reliable operation. Digitalization of energy systems allows utilities to monitor the system dynamic performance in real-time at fast time scales. The use of such technologies has unlocked new opportunities to introduce new data driven algorithms for improving the stability assessment and control of the system. Motivated by these challenges, a group of experts have worked together to highlight and establish a baseline set of these common concerns, which can be used as motivation to propose innovative analytics and data-driven solutions. In this document, the results of a survey on 10 transmission system operators around the world are presented and it aims to understand the current practices of the participating companies, in terms of data acquisition, handling, storage, modelling and analytics. The overall objective of this document is to capture the actual needs from the interviewed utilities, thereby laying the groundwork for setting valid assumptions for the development of advanced algorithms in this field.
A Rapid Belt-driven Irradiated Target Transfer System, named RABITTS, was developed for use at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. This system allows for cyclic activation with neutron or photon beams, and measurement of reaction products using γ-ray spectroscopy. Both a 1 meter and 10 meter transfer system have been developed with transit times as low as 0.4 and 1.0 seconds, respectively. The systems are deployed at the tandem accelerator laboratory for use with monoenergetic neutron beams, and at the High-Intensity γ-ray Source facility for activation using photon beams. A detailed characterization of the systems’ performance and sensitivity is presented. In order to produce the highest accuracy cross-section data, a model for calculating corrections to cyclic activation with variable beam flux is developed and presented. We have commissioned these systems by measuring 197m Au, where we report a measured half-life of 7.73 ± 0.05 s and a 197 Au(n, n') 197m Au isomer production cross of 628 ± 28 mb at neutron energy E n = 2.0 MeV. In addition, we measured 90m Zr, where we report a measured half-life of 799.7 ± 8.0 ms and a 90 Zr(n, n') 90m Zr isomer production cross of 180 ± 12 mb at E n = 4.6 MeV. Furthermore, these measured half-lives are in excellent agreement with the evaluated values and the cross-section measurements are performed at previously unmeasured incident neutron energies.