Development of a Computed Tomography Simulator: SimCT, Application to Health Monitoring and Remaining Life Assessment

The objective of this activity is to develop a quantitative NDE simulation tool for computed tomography suitable for desktop work using realistic geometry descriptions of complex anisotropic geometry. The increasing demands on NDE to address inspection reliability in the area of health monitoring and remaining life assessment demand that quantitative engineering tools be available so that cost effect engineering analysis on inspectibility limits and optimal inspection protocols be done. Most NDE techniques, as they move to a more digital format, generate terabytes of data for a single scan. X-ray methods generally have high computational needs. Until recently extracting information from massive data sets was impossible due to limited computation capabilities. By applying the emerging massively parallel graphic processing cards (GPU) to a CT simulation, SimCT, we have a means to address the quantitative modeling in an important NDE method needed to characterize materials in support of health monitoring activities. The computational techniques using GPU platforms and the data analysis methods developed in the x-ray area apply to any NDE method. This R & D effort will develop a GPU implementation of the key subroutine in SimCT and demonstrate the capability to handle NDE simulation needs using complex geometry in near real time.