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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 451 records · Page 25

Rapid Inspection of Aerospace Structures - Is It Autonomous Yet?

The trend to increase the usage of aging aircraft added a great deal of urgency to the ongoing need for low-cost, rapid, simple-to-operate, reliable and efficient NDE methods for detection and characterization of flaws in aircraft structures. In many cases, the problem of inspection is complex due to the limitation of current technology and the need to disassemble aircraft structures and testing them in lab conditions. To overcome these limitations, reliable field inspection tools are being developed for rapid NDE of large and complex-shape structures, that can operate at harsh, hostal and remote conditions with minimum human interface. In recent years, to address the need for rapid inspection in field conditions, numerous portable scanners were developed using NDE methods, including ultrasonics, shearography, thermography. This paper is written with emphasis on ultrasonic NDE scanners, their evolution and the expected direction of growth.

Crawling System autonomous robotics↗

Isotopic gamma lines for identification of shielding materials

Identifying the constituting materials of concealed objects is crucial in a wide range of sectors, such as medical imaging, geophysics, nonproliferation, national security investigations, and so on. Existing methods face limitations, particularly when multiple materials are involved or when there are challenges posed by scattered radiation and large areal mass. Here we introduce a novel brute-force statistical approach for material identification using high spectral resolution detectors, such as HPGe. The method relies upon updated semianalytic formulae for computing uncollided flux from source of gamma radiation, shielded by a sequence of nested spherical or cylindrical materials. These semianalytical formulae make possible rapid flux estimation for material characterization via combinatorial search through all possible combinations of materials, using a high-resolution HPGe counting detector. An important prerequisite for the method is that the geometry of the objects is known (for example, from X-ray radiography). We demonstrate the viability of this material characterization technique in several use cases with both simulated and experimental data in spherical geometry.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗