Imaging System for Characterizing Materials and Processes

A high-performance digital imaging system has been assembled to provide enhanced capabilities for characterizing materials and processes. Highspeed imaging is needed for observation and analysis of such fast dynamic processes as impact fracture (including ballistically induced fracture) in advanced composite materials, dynamic deformation of materials, and hydrodynamic instabilities in jets. Because these dynamic processes occur at diverse temporal and spatial scales, there is a need for an imaging system that can operate at correspondingly diverse frame rates, spatial resolutions, and magnifications, and that is capable of recording various numbers of image frames.