This topic addresses fundamental technical challenges toward holistic Materials State Awareness—reliable nondestructive quantitative materials and damage characterization, regardless of scale.  The intended application of this technology is towards improved nondestructive evaluation (NDE) capabilities that are integral to the sustainment and structural integrity of USAF airframes and engines and to the qualification of new materials with tailored properties.  This includes but is not limited to technologies such as electromagnetic radiation across all frequency ranges, mechanical waves (e.g., ultrasound), and thermal diffusion-based methods.  Current research focuses on the following activities:

-development and utilization of forward models for quantitative prediction and optimization of NDE tools and methods

-development and utilization of inverse methods to quantify the material state from NDE data

-application of analytics and statistical methods for knowledge discovery from NDE data

-implementation of uncertainty quantification of NDE models and experimental methods

-correlative analysis of NDE data with ‘ground truth’ 3D data from destructive characterization methods

-creation of new NDE methods, miniaturization, and/or increasing the capabilities of existing methods via integration of robotics, spatial registration sensors, machine vision, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous control systems, and other advanced technology

-capability validation of in-situ damage detection sensors (Structural Health Monitoring (SHM)) via probability of detection methods