Joseph N. Zalameda

The HYTHIRM Project: Flight Thermography of the Space Shuttle During the Hypersonic Re-entry

This report describes a NASA Langley led endeavor sponsored by the NASA Engineering Safety Center, the Space Shuttle Program Office and the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate to demonstrate a quantitative thermal imaging capability. A background and an overview of several multidisciplinary efforts that culminated in the acquisition of high resolution calibrated infrared imagery of the Space Shuttle during hypervelocity atmospheric entry is presented. The successful collection of thermal data has demonstrated the feasibility of obtaining remote high-resolution infrared imagery during hypersonic flight for the accurate measurement of surface temperature. To maximize science and engineering return, the acquisition of quantitative thermal imagery and capability demonstration was targeted towards three recent Shuttle flights - two of which involved flight experiments flown on Discovery. In coordination with these two Shuttle flight experiments, a US Navy NP-3D aircraft was flown between 26-41 nautical miles below Discovery and remotely monitored surface temperature of the Orbiter at Mach 8.4 (STS-119) and Mach 14.7 (STS-128) using a long-range infrared optical package referred to as Cast Glance. This same Navy aircraft successfully monitored the Orbiter Atlantis traveling at approximately Mach 14.3 during its return from the successful Hubble repair mission (STS-125). The purpose of this paper is to describe the systematic approach used by the Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements team to develop and implement a set of mission planning tools designed to establish confidence in the ability of an imaging platform to reliably acquire, track and return global quantitative surface temperatures of the Shuttle during entry. The mission planning tools included a pre-flight capability to predict the infrared signature of the Shuttle. Such tools permitted optimization of the hardware configuration to increase signal-to-noise and to maximize the available dynamic range while mitigating the potential for saturation. Post flight, analysis tools were used to assess atmospheric effects and to convert the 2-D intensity images to 3-D temperature maps of the windward surface. Comparison of the spatially resolved global thermal measurements to surface thermocouples and CFD prediction is made. Successful demonstration of a quantitative, spatially resolved, global temperature measurement on the Shuttle suggests future applications towards hypersonic flight test programs within NASA, DoD and DARPA along with flight test opportunities supporting NASAs project Constellation.

Application of a Near Infrared Imaging System for Thermographic Imaging of the Space Shuttle during Hypersonic Re-Entry

High resolution calibrated near infrared (NIR) imagery was obtained of the Space Shuttle’s re-entry during STS-119, STS-125, and STS-128 missions. The infrared imagery was collected using a US Navy NP-3D Orion aircraft using a long-range infrared optical package referred to as Cast Glance. The slant ranges between the Space Shuttle and Cast Glance were approximately 26-41 nautical miles at point of closest approach. The Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements (HYTHIRM) project was a NASA Langley led endeavor sponsored by the NASA Engineering Safety Center, the Space Shuttle Program Office and the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate to demon-strate a quantitative thermal imaging capability. HYTHIRM required several mission tools to acquire the imagery. These tools include pre-mission acquisition simulations of the Shuttle trajectory in rela-tionship to the Cast Glance aircraft flight path, radiance modeling to predict the infrared response of the Shuttle, and post mission analysis tools to process the infrared imagery to quantitative temperature maps. The spatially resolved global thermal measurements made during the Shuttle’s hypersonic re-entry provides valuable flight data for reducing the uncertainty associated with present day ground-to-flight extrapolation techniques and current state-of-the-art empirical boundary-layer transition or turbulent heating prediction methods. Laminar and turbulent flight data is considered critical for the development of turbulence models supporting NASA’s next-generation spacecraft. This paper will provide the motivation and details behind the use of an upgraded NIR imaging system used onboard a Navy Cast Glance aircraft and describe the characterizations and procedures performed to obtain quantitative temperature maps. A brief description and assessment will be provided of the previously used analog NIR camera along with image examples from Shuttle missions STS-121, STS-115, and so-lar tower test. These thermal observations confirmed the challenge of a long-range acquisition during re-entry. These challenges are due to unknown atmospheric conditions, image saturation, vibration etc. This provides the motivation for the use of a digital NIR sensor. The characterizations performed on the digital NIR sensor included radiometric, spatial, and spectral measurements using blackbody radiation sources and known targets. An assessment of the collected data for three Space Shuttle at-mospheric re-entries, STS-119, STS-125, and STS-128, are provided along with a description of various events of interest captured using the digital NIR imaging system such as RCS firings and boundary layer transitions. Lastly the process used to convert the raw image counts to quantitative temperatures is presented along with comparisons to the Space Shuttle’s onboard thermocouples.

HYTHIRM Radiance Modeling and Image Analyses in Support of STS-119, STS-125 and STS-128 Space Shuttle Hypersonic Re-entries

We provide the first geometrically accurate (i.e., 3-D) temperature maps of the entire windward surface of the Space Shuttle during hypersonic reentry. To accomplish this task we began with estimated surface temperatures derived from CFD models at integral high Mach numbers and used them, the Shuttle’s surface properties and reasonable estimates of the sensor-to-target geometry to predict the emitted spectral radiance from the surface (in units of W sr -1 m -2 nm -1 ). These data were converted to sensor counts using properties of the sensor (e.g. aperture, spectral band, and various efficiencies), the expected background, and the atmosphere transmission to inform the optimal settings for the near-infrared and midwave IR cameras on the Cast Glance aircraft. Once these data were collected, calibrated, edited, registered and co-added we formed both 2-D maps of the scene in the above units and 3-D maps of the bottom surface in temperature that could be compared with not only the initial inputs but also thermocouple data from the Shuttle itself. The 3-D temperature mapping process was based on the initial radiance modeling process. Here temperatures were “guessed” for each node in a well-resolved 3-D framework, a radiance model was produced and compared to the processed imagery, and corrections to the temperature were estimated until the iterative process converged. This process did very well in characterizing the temperature structure of the large asymmetric boundary layer transition the covered much of the starboard bottom surface of STS-119 Discovery. Both internally estimated accuracies and differences with CFD models and thermocouple measurements are at most a few percent. The technique did less well characterizing the temperature structure of the turbulent wedge behind the trip due to limitations in understanding the true sensor resolution. (Note: Those less inclined to read the entire paper are encouraged to read an Executive Summary provided at the end.)

Lamb wave assessment of fiber volume fraction in composites

Among the various techniques available, ultrasonic Lamb waves offer a convenient method of examining composite materials. Since the Lamb wave velocity depends on the elastic properties of a material, an effective tool exists to evaluate composites by measuring the velocity of these waves. Lamb waves can propagate over long distances and are sensitive to the desired in-plane elastic properties of the material. This paper discusses a study in which Lamb waves were used to examine fiber volume fraction variations of approximately 0.40-0.70 in composites. The Lamb wave measurements were compared to fiber volume fractions obtained from acid digestion tests. Additionally, a model to predict the fiber volume fraction from Lamb wave velocity values was evaluated.

Processing near-infrared imagery of hypersonic space shuttle reentries

High-resolution, calibrated, near-infrared imagery of the Space Shuttle during reentry has been obtained by a US Navy NP-3D Orion aircraft as part of NASAs HYTHIRM (Hypersonic Thermodynamic InfraRed Measurements) project. The long-range optical sensor package is called Cast Glance. Three sets of imagery have been processed thus far: 1) STS- 119 when Shuttle Discovery was at 52 km away at Mach 8.4, 2) STS-125 when Shuttle Atlantis was 71 km away at Mach 14.3, and 3) STS-128 when Shuttle Discovery was at 80 km away at Mach 14.7. The challenges presented in processing a manually-tracked high-angular rate, air-to-air image data collection include management of significant frame-to-frame motions, motion-induced blurring, changing orientations and ranges, daylight conditions, and sky backgrounds (including some cirrus clouds). This paper describes processing the imagery to estimate Shuttle surface temperatures. Our goal is to reduce the detrimental effects due to motions (sensor and Shuttle), vibration, and atmospherics for image quality improvement, without compromising the quantitative integrity of the data, especially local intensity variations. Our approach is to select and utilize only the highest quality images, register many cotemporal image frames to a single image frame, and then add the registered frames to improve image quality and reduce noise. These registered and averaged intensity images are converted to temperatures on the Shuttles windward surface using a series of steps starting with preflight calibration data. Comparisons with thermocouples at different points along the space Shuttle and between the three reentries will be shown.

Thermal imaging for assessment of electron-beam freeform fabrication (EBF3) additive manufacturing deposits

Additive manufacturing is a rapidly growing field where 3-dimensional parts can be produced layer by layer. NASA’s electron beam freeform fabrication (EBF3) technology is being evaluated to manufacture metallic parts in a space environment. The benefits of EBF3 technology are weight savings to support space missions, rapid prototyping in a zero gravity environment, and improved vehicle readiness. The EBF3 system is composed of 3 main components: electron beam gun, multi-axis position system, and metallic wire feeder. The electron beam is used to melt the wire and the multi-axis positioning system is used to build the part layer by layer. To insure a quality deposit, a near infrared (NIR) camera is used to image the melt pool and solidification areas. This paper describes the calibration and application of a NIR camera for temperature measurement. In addition, image processing techniques are presented for deposit assessment metrics.

Ultrasonic monitoring of ply crack and delamination formation in composite tube under torsion load

As a simple model of a rotor spar, a circular graphite-epoxy composite laminate cylinder was subjected to cyclic torsional load. The test section of the cylindrical specimen varied from four to six plies of ±45° fibers, due to intentional ply overlaps and gaps. A layer of 13-μm Teflon film was inserted between plies at three locations to serve as delamination initiators. A commercial X-Y scanner was mounted to the load frame to enable ultrasonic inspection without removing the specimen. A focused immersion probe was mounted in a captive water column with a rugged Nitrile membrane tip, which was coupled to the cylinder using a mist of soapy water. The transducer was aligned normal to the cylinder surface using the X-axis. Scanning was performed along the length of the specimen with the Y-axis and the specimen was incrementally rotated by the torsion head of the load frame. After 350k cycles of torsion, several linear 45° diagonal indications appeared as 5–40% attenuation of the back wall echo, with no apparent echoes from the interior of the composite, suggesting through-ply cracks in the innermost ply. Crack indications grew and new cracks appeared as torsion cycling continued. Internal reflections from delaminations associated with the growing ply cracks appeared after 500k cycles. Three areas of extensive multi-layer delaminations appeared after 1150k cycles. Failure of the specimen occurred at 1600k cycles. The observed progressive damage was not associated with the Teflon inclusions. Concurrent thermographic measurements provided lower-resolution confirmation of the damage observed.

Thermography inspection for early detection of composite damage in structures during fatigue loading

Advanced composite structures are commonly tested under controlled loading. Understanding the initiation and progression of composite damage under load is critical for validating design concepts and structural analysis tools. Thermal nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is used to detect and characterize damage in composite structures during fatigue loading. A difference image processing algorithm is demonstrated to enhance damage detection and characterization by removing thermal variations not associated with defects. In addition, a one-dimensional multilayered thermal model is used to characterize damage. Lastly, the thermography results are compared to other inspections such as non-immersion ultrasonic inspections and computed tomography X-ray.

Thermal Diffusivity Measurements on Composite Porosity Samples

Porosity is a defect which can arise from moisture or gases being introduced to the resin system before cure and also during the curing process when poor bagging techniques are used. The effect of porosity results in a degradation in compressive, transverse tensile, and interlaminar shear strengths. For example, for a 1% porosity level there is approximately a 7% decrease in the interlaminar shear strength [1]. Ultrasonics is the current state of the art NDE method for the characterization of porosity in composites using the back scatter and frequency dependent attenuation measurements. In this work a thermal diffusivity technique is investigated for the characterization of porosity in graphite composite parts. The advantages of using thermal techniques is the noncontacting nature of the measurements and the ability to capture large areas using a thermal imager.

Global Thermography of the Space Shuttle During Hypersonic Re-entry

Three dimensional surface thermography of the windward side of the Space Shuttle based on near infrared measurements is presented for STS-119, STS-125, STS-128, STS-132 and STS-133 reentries. A method used to project 2-D imagery to 3-D surface geometry is used to improve on previously used iterative method both in accuracy and in computational speed. Effects of material dependent surface spectral emissivities, image blurring and image-model alignment are all seen to have strong effects on the resultant temperature map. Results indicate best surface temperature accuracies in regions of small thermal gradients. Acronyms