Automated location of active fire perimeters in aerial infrared imaging using unsupervised edge detectors

A variety of remote sensing techniques have been applied to forest fires. However, there is at present no system capable of monitoring an active fire precisely in a totally automated manner. Spaceborne sensors show too coarse spatio-temporal resolutions and all previous studies that extracted fire properties from infrared aerial imagery incorporated manual tasks within the image processing workflow. As a contribution to this topic, this paper presents an algorithm to automatically locate the fuel burning interface of an active wildfire in georeferenced aerial thermal infrared (TIR) imagery. An unsupervised edge detector, built upon the Canny method, was accompanied by the necessary modules for the extraction of line coordinates and the location of the total burned perimeter. The system was validated in different scenarios ranging from laboratory tests to large-scale experimental burns performed under extreme weather conditions. Output accuracy was computed through three common similarity indices and proved acceptable. Computing times were below 1¿s per image on average. The produced information was used to measure the temporal evolution of the fire perimeter and automatically generate rate of spread (ROS) fields. Information products were easily exported to standard Geographic Information Systems (GIS), such as GoogleEarth and QGIS. Therefore, this work contributes towards the development of an affordable and totally automated system for operational wildfire surveillance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Development of Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy for the Characterization of Turbulent Jet Flames

Recent advances in computational models to simulate turbulent, reactive flow fields have outpaced the ability to collect highly constraining data--throughout the entire flow field--for validating and improving such models. In particular, the ability to quantify in three dimensions both the mean scalar fields (i.e. temperature & species concentrations) and their respective fluctuation statistics via hyperspectral imaging would be a game-changing advancement in combustion diagnostics, with high impact in both validation and improvement efforts for computational combustion models. This research effort establishes imaging Fourier-transform spectrometry (IFTS) as a valuable tool (which complements laser diagnostics) for the study of turbulent combustion. Specifically, this effort (1) demonstrates that IFTS can be used to quantitatively measure spatially resolved spectra from a canonical turbulent flame; (2) establishes the utility of quantile spectra in first-ever quantitative comparisons between measured and modeled turbulent radiation interaction (TRI); (3) develops a simple onion-peeling-like spectral inversion methodology suitable for estimating radial scalar distributions in axisymmetric, optically-thick flames; (4) builds understanding of quantile spectra and demonstrates proof of concept for their use in estimating scalar fluctuation statistics

Chemical analysis of polymer blends via synchrotron X-ray tomography

Material properties of industrial polymer blends are of great importance. X-ray tomography has been used to obtain spatial chemical information about various polymer blends. The spatial images are acquired with synchrotron X-ray tomography because of its rapidity, good spatial resolution, large field-of-view, and elemental sensitivity. The spatial absorption data acquired from X-ray tomography experiments is converted to spatial chemical information via a linear least squares fit of multi-spectral X-ray absorption data. A fiberglass-reinforced polymer blend with a new-generation flame retardant is studied with multi-energy synchrotron X-ray tomography to assess the blend homogeneity. Relative to other composite materials, this sample is difficult to image due to low x-ray contrast between the fiberglass reinforcement and the polymer blend. To investigate chemical composition surrounding the glass fibers, new procedures were developed to find and mark the fiberglass, then assess the flame retardant distribution near the fiber. Another polymer blending experiment using three-dimensional chemical analysis techniques to look at a polymer additive problem called blooming was done. To investigate the chemical process of blooming, new procedures are developed to assess the flame retardant distribution as a function of annealing time in the sample. With the spatial chemical distribution we fit the concentrations to a diffusion equation to each time step in the annealing process. Finally the diffusion properties of a polymer blend composed of hexabromobenzene and o-terphenyl was studied. The diffusion properties were compared with computer simulations of the blend

Thermal Ignition by Vertical Cylinders

Accidental thermal ignition events present a significant hazard to the aviation industry. There is scarcity of experimental data on ignition by external natural convection flows for surface areas larger than 10 cm². In this work, thermal ignition of external natural convection flows by vertical cylinders is investigated. The effect of geometry is studied by resistively heating stainless steel cylinders of various sizes in a stoichiometric n-hexane and air mixture at 298 K and 1 bar. Cylinder lengths range from 12.7 to 25.4 cm, and cylinder surface areas vary from 25 to 200 cm². Logistic regression is used to provide statistical information about the ignition threshold (50% probability of ignition). The maximum ignition threshold found is 1117 K for a cylinder 12.7 cm long and 50 cm² in surface area. The minimum ignition threshold found is 1019 K for a cylinder 25.4 cm long and 200 cm² in surface area. The maximum uncertainty on these ignition thresholds is ±29 K, which comes from the maximum uncertainty on the pyrometer measurement used to record cylinder surface temperatures. The dependence of ignition threshold on both surface area and length of a cylinder is found to be minor. High speed visualizations of ignition indicated that ignition occurs near the top edge of all cylinders. The entire experimental setup is heated to allow for ignition tests with multi-component, heavy-hydrocarbon fuels including Jet A and two surrogate fuels, Aachen and JI. The cylinder used for all testing of heavier fuels is 25.4 cm long and 200 cm² in surface area. Hexane is also tested with the heated vessel to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on ignition. At an ambient temperature of 393 K, the ignition threshold of hexane is 933 K. Aachen has an ignition threshold of 947 K at an ambient temperature of 373 K. JI has an ignition temperature of 984 K at an ambient temperature of 393 K. Jet A has an ignition temperature of 971 K at an ambient temperature of 333 K. The maximum uncertainty on these thresholds is ±29 K. JI is found to be the most appropriate surrogate for Jet A. From the experiments, two main conclusions are reached. Ignition threshold temperatures in external natural convection flows are very weakly correlated with surface area. The observed ignition thresholds do not show the drastic transition of ignition temperature with surface area that is observed in internal natural convection situations. Observed ignition thresholds for comparable surface areas (100 to 200 cm²) are 500 to 600 K higher for external natural convection than internal natural convection. Hexane was found to be a reasonable surrogate for Jet A (38 K difference in ignition threshold) in external natural convection ignition testing. The more complex multi-component JI surrogate, while having an ignition threshold more comparable to Jet A (13 K difference in ignition threshold), requires heating the experimental apparatus and associated difficulties of fuel handling as well as the soot generation by combustion. Two simplified models of ignition are explored. The first is an investigation of ignition chemistry using a zero-dimensional reactor and a detailed kinetic mechanism for hexane. The temperature history of the reactor is prescribed by an artificial streamline whose rate of temperature increase is parametrically varied. The results from the zero-dimensional reactor computation reveal that a gradually heated streamline exhibits two-stage ignition behavior, while a rapidly heated streamline only experiences one ignition event. The second model of ignition is a one-dimensional simulation of ignition adjacent to a cylinder at a prescribed temperature. The formulation included diffusion of species and thermal energy as well as chemical reaction and employed Lagrangian coordinates. The chemistry is modeled with a reaction mechanism for hydrogen to reduce numerical demand. Heat flux and energy balance are analysed to gain insight into the ignition dynamics. Initially, heat transfer is from the wall into the gas, and a mostly nonreactive thermal boundary layer develops around the cylinder. As reaction in the gas near the surface begins to release energy, the heat transfer decreases, and, near the critical temperature for ignition, the direction of heat flux reverses and is from the gas into the wall. In a case where ignition takes place, there is rapid rise in temperature in the gas within the thermal layer, and a propagating flame is observed to emerge into surrounding cold gas. The heat transfer from the hot combustion products results in a continuous heat flux from the gas into the wall. In a case where ignition does not take place, no flame is observed and the heat flux at the wall is slightly positive. For the critical condition just below the ignition threshold, a balance between energy release and diffusion in the adjacent gas results in a small temperature rise in the thermal layer, but a propagating flame is not created. The Van't Hoff ignition criterion of vanishing heat flux at the ignition threshold is approximately but not exactly satisfied. Contrasting the two modeling ideas, we observe that modeling adiabatic flows along computed nonreactive streamlines is useful in examining the role of detailed chemistry but lacks important diffusion effects. Including mass and thermal transport provides more insight into important ignition dynamics but comes at the expense of increased computational complexity.</p

NIR Imagery-based Grass Fire Detection and Metrics Measurement using Small UAS

This thesis focuses on the generation of a new grass fire aerial image dataset and development of novel methods for near-infrared (NIR) imagery-based fire front identification and fire depth estimation using small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). The procedure for collection and creation of the Grass Fire Front and near-Infrared (NIR) and Thermal Imagery (GRAFFITI) dataset is introduced first including two levels of data: synced raw thermal and red, green and near-infrared (RGNIR) image pairs and processed image pairs of the same overlapping field-of-view. A novel NIR imagery-based fire detection and fire front identification algorithm is then proposed and validated against manually labeled ground truth, using the GRAFFITI dataset. A comparative study is further performed on the problem of grass fire front location and flame depth estimation using thermal and NIR imagery. Finally, recommendations are made to future researchers who are interested in wildland fire sensing using thermal or NIR imagery

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects

The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number