arcjetCV: an Open-Source Software to Analyze Material Ablation

arcjetCV is an open-source Python software designed to automate time-resolved measurements of heatshield material ablation and recession rates from arcjet test video footage. This new automated and accessible capability enables two-dimensional (2D) in-situ recession characterization from profile video. arcjetCV automates the video segmentation process using two primary machine learning models: a one-dimensional (1D) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to infer the time-window of interest and a 2D CNN for image segmentation. 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 batch video processing. arcjetCV’s capability to measure time-resolved recession in turn enables characterization of non-linear processes (non-linear recession, shrinkage, swelling, 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.