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Summary of monitoring station component evaluation project 2009-2011

Hart, Darren H.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is regarded as a center for unbiased expertise in testing and evaluation of geophysical sensors and instrumentation for ground-based nuclear explosion monitoring (GNEM) systems. This project will sustain and enhance our component evaluation capabilities. In addition, new sensor technologies that could greatly improve national monitoring system performance will be sought and characterized. This work directly impacts the Ground-based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring mission by verifying that the performance of monitoring station sensors and instrumentation is characterized and suitable to the mission. It enables the operational monitoring agency to deploy instruments of known capability and to have confidence in operational success. This effort will ensure that our evaluation capabilities are maintained for future use.

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Seismic data acquisition at the FACT site for the CASPAR project

Chael, Eric P.; Hart, Darren H.; Jones, Kyle R.

Since May 2010, we have been recording continuous seismic data at Sandia's FACT site. The collected signals provide us with a realistic archive for testing algorithms under development for local monitoring of explosive testing. Numerous small explosive tests are routinely conducted around Kirtland AFB by different organizations. Our goal is to identify effective methods for distinguishing these events from normal daily activity on and near the base, such as vehicles, aircraft, and storms. In this report, we describe the recording system, and present some observations of the varying ambient noise conditions at FACT. We present examples of various common, non-explosive, sources. Next we show signals from several small explosions, and discuss their characteristic features.

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Component evaluation testing and analysis algorithms

Merchant, Bion J.; Hart, Darren H.

The Ground-Based Monitoring R&E Component Evaluation project performs testing on the hardware components that make up Seismic and Infrasound monitoring systems. The majority of the testing is focused on the Digital Waveform Recorder (DWR), Seismic Sensor, and Infrasound Sensor. In order to guarantee consistency, traceability, and visibility into the results of the testing process, it is necessary to document the test and analysis procedures that are in place. Other reports document the testing procedures that are in place (Kromer, 2007). This document serves to provide a comprehensive overview of the analysis and the algorithms that are applied to the Component Evaluation testing. A brief summary of each test is included to provide the context for the analysis that is to be performed.

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Evaluation of the Geotech SMART24BH 20Vpp/5Vpp data acquisition system with active fortezza crypto card data signing and authentication

Hart, Darren H.; Rembold, Randy K.

Sandia National Laboratories has tested and evaluated Geotech SMART24BH borehole data acquisition system with active Fortezza crypto card data signing and authentication. The test results included in this report were in response to static and tonal-dynamic input signals. Most test methodologies used were based on IEEE Standards 1057 for Digitizing Waveform Recorders and 1241 for Analog to Digital Converters; others were designed by Sandia specifically for infrasound application evaluation and for supplementary criteria not addressed in the IEEE standards. The objective of this work was to evaluate the overall technical performance of two Geotech SMART24BH digitizers with a Fortezza PCMCIA crypto card actively implementing the signing of data packets. The results of this evaluation were compared to relevant specifications provided within manufacturer's documentation notes. The tests performed were chosen to demonstrate different performance aspects of the digitizer under test. The performance aspects tested include determining noise floor, least significant bit (LSB), dynamic range, cross-talk, relative channel-to-channel timing, time-tag accuracy/statistics/drift, analog bandwidth.

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Evaluation of the Geotech Smart24 data acquisition system with active Fortezza crypto card data signing and authentication

Hart, Darren H.

Sandia National Laboratories has tested and evaluated Geotech Smart24 data acquisition system with active Fortezza crypto card data signing and authentication. The test results included in this report were in response to static and tonal-dynamic input signals. Most test methodologies used were based on IEEE Standards 1057 for Digitizing Waveform Recorders and 1241 for Analog to Digital Converters; others were designed by Sandia specifically for infrasound application evaluation and for supplementary criteria not addressed in the IEEE standards. The objective of this work was to evaluate the overall technical performance of the Geotech Smart24 digitizer with a Fortezza PCMCIA crypto card actively implementing the signing of data packets. The results of this evaluation were compared to relevant specifications provided within manufacturer's documentation notes. The tests performed were chosen to demonstrate different performance aspects of the digitizer under test. The performance aspects tested include determining noise floor, least significant bit (LSB), dynamic range, cross-talk, relative channel-to-channel timing, time-tag accuracy, analog bandwidth and calibrator performance.

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Evaluation of Inter-Mountain Labs infrasound sensors : July 2007

Hart, Darren H.

Sandia National Laboratories has tested and evaluated three Inter Mountain Labs infrasound sensors. The test results included in this report were in response to static and tonal-dynamic input signals. Most test methodologies used were based on IEEE Standards 1057 for Digitizing Waveform Recorders and 1241 for Analog to Digital Converters; others were designed by Sandia specifically for infrasound application evaluation and for supplementary criteria not addressed in the IEEE standards. The objective of this work was to evaluate the overall technical performance of the Inter Mountain Labs (IML) infrasound sensor model SS. The results of this evaluation were only compared to relevant noise models; due to a lack of manufactures documentation notes on the sensors under test prior to testing. The tests selected for this system were chosen to demonstrate different performance aspects of the components under test.

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Test definitions for the evaluation of digital waveform recorders

Hart, Darren H.; Harris, James M.

This Test Definition for the Evaluation of Digitizing Waveform Recorders (DWR) defines the process that can be performed as part of the evaluation and testing of geophysical sensors, digitizers, sensor subsystems and geophysical station/array systems. The objectives are to (1) evaluate the overall technical performance of the DWR, measure the distortions introduced by the high resolution digitizers and provide a performance check of the internal calibrator if provided and (2) evaluate the technical performance of the DWR for a specific sensor application. The results of these evaluations can be compared to the manufacturer's specifications and any relevant application requirements or specifications.

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Test definitions for the evaluation of infrasound sensors

Hart, Darren H.; Harris, James M.

Most test methodologies referenced in this Test Definition and Test Procedures were designed by Sandia specifically for geophysical instrumentation evaluation. When appropriate, test instrumentation calibration is traceable to the National Institute for Standards Technology (NIST). The objectives are to evaluate the overall technical performance of the infrasound sensor. The results of these evaluations can be compared to the manufacturer's specifications and any relevant application requirements or specifications.

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MatSeis and the GNEM R&E regional seismic anaylsis tools

Merchant, Bion J.; Merchant, Bion J.; Chael, Eric P.; Hart, Darren H.; Young, Christopher J.

To improve the nuclear event monitoring capability of the U.S., the NNSA Ground-based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring Research & Engineering (GNEM R&E) program has been developing a collection of products known as the Knowledge Base (KB). Though much of the focus for the KB has been on the development of calibration data, we have also developed numerous software tools for various purposes. The Matlab-based MatSeis package and the associated suite of regional seismic analysis tools were developed to aid in the testing and evaluation of some Knowledge Base products for which existing applications were either not available or ill-suited. This presentation will provide brief overviews of MatSeis and each of the tools, emphasizing features added in the last year. MatSeis was begun in 1996 and is now a fairly mature product. It is a highly flexible seismic analysis package that provides interfaces to read data from either flatfiles or an Oracle database. All of the standard seismic analysis tasks are supported (e.g. filtering, 3 component rotation, phase picking, event location, magnitude calculation), as well as a variety of array processing algorithms (beaming, FK, coherency analysis, vespagrams). The simplicity of Matlab coding and the tremendous number of available functions make MatSeis/Matlab an ideal environment for developing new monitoring research tools (see the regional seismic analysis tools below). New MatSeis features include: addition of evid information to events in MatSeis, options to screen picks by author, input and output of origerr information, improved performance in reading flatfiles, improved speed in FK calculations, and significant improvements to Measure Tool (filtering, multiple phase display), Free Plot (filtering, phase display and alignment), Mag Tool (maximum likelihood options), and Infra Tool (improved calculation speed, display of an F statistic stream). Work on the regional seismic analysis tools (CodaMag, EventID, PhaseMatch, and Dendro) began in 1999 and the tools vary in their level of maturity. All rely on MatSeis to provide necessary data (waveforms, arrivals, origins, and travel time curves). CodaMag Tool implements magnitude calculation by scaling to fit the envelope shape of the coda for a selected phase type (Mayeda, 1993; Mayeda and Walter, 1996). New tool features include: calculation of a yield estimate based on the source spectrum, display of a filtered version of the seismogram based on the selected band, and the output of codamag data records for processed events. EventID Tool implements event discrimination using phase ratios of regional arrivals (Hartse et al., 1997; Walter et al., 1999). New features include: bandpass filtering of displayed waveforms, screening of reference events based on SNR, multivariate discriminants, use of libcgi to access correction surfaces, and the output of discrim{_}data records for processed events. PhaseMatch Tool implements match filtering to isolate surface waves (Herrin and Goforth, 1977). New features include: display of the signal's observed dispersion and an option to use a station-based dispersion surface. Dendro Tool implements agglomerative hierarchical clustering using dendrograms to identify similar events based on waveform correlation (Everitt, 1993). New features include: modifications to include arrival information within the tool, and the capability to automatically add/re-pick arrivals based on the picked arrivals for similar events.

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44 Results
44 Results