Nondestructive evaluation, structural health monitoring and optical diagnostics at NASA Glenn: A summary

The Optical Instrumentation and NDE branch's mission is to compete to be the customer's first choice within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for innovative instrumentation and cost effective solutions in the following research and development challenges: optical flow diagnostics, optical surface diagnostics, space and airborne flight electronics and mobile sensor platforms, nondestructive evaluation and propulsion health monitoring methods, and photonic devices and measurement systems. Our data leads to improved designs, validation and verification of systems performance, increased safety and security and reduced design cycle times for core technologies developed at the Glenn Research Center (GRC) & NASA. For ETNDT5, the focus is on NDE methods development, propulsion health monitoring, optical flow diagnostics, optical surface diagnostics, and thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for damage assessment in materials and components. The selected accomplishments that are highlighted include technologies pertinent to ETNDT5 with some emphasis on seedling ideas that progressed from the development in the lab to real time aerospace applications.