arcjetCV: an open-source software to analyze material ablation
Alexandre Quintart Magnus Haw Federico Semeraro
arcjetCV is an open-source Python software designed to automate time-resolved
measurements of heatshield material recession and recession rates from arcjet
test video footage. This new automated and accessible capability greatly
exceeds previous manual extraction methods, enabling rapid and detailed
characterization of material recession for any sample with a profile video.
arcjetCV automates the video segmentation process using machine learning
models, including a one-dimensional (1D) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to
infer the time-window of interest, a two-dimensional (2D) CNN for image and
edge segmentation, and a Local Outlier Factor (LOF) for outlier filtering. A
graphical user interface (GUI) simplifies the user experience and an
application programming interface (API) allows users to call the core functions
from scripts, enabling video batch processing. arcjetCV's capability to measure
time-resolved recession in turn enables characterization of non-linear
processes (shrinkage, swelling, melt flows, etc.), contributing to higher
fidelity validation and improved modeling of heatshield material performance.
The source code associated with this article can be found at
https://github.com/magnus-haw/arcjetCV.