{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design__physics","archetype_slug":"invariant_mode_decomposition_design","domain_slug":"physics","title":"Validity-gated modal detection and damping of thermoacoustic instability","opportunity_summary":"Test whether a locally identified coupled pressure–heat-release mode can forecast thermoacoustic onset and guide bounded actuator pulses better than single-sensor alarms or frequency-peak feedback. The proposal is falsifiable and safety-bounded, but mode reproducibility, control benefit, problem prevalence, and distinctiveness remain unverified.","adopter_authorizer":"Combustion researchers and laboratory safety operators are the prospective adopters; the combustor principal investigator may authorize analysis, while the facility safety lead must authorize perturbations, run limits, and actuator trials.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"Preventing or delaying damaging combustor pressure oscillations and enabling earlier safe shutdown or control would materially protect personnel, equipment, and experiments, although the frequency and aggregate magnitude of this problem are unsupported."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"The candidate identifies researchers, facility operators, equipment owners, and explicit approval roles, but supplies no adoption inquiry, demand evidence, incident history, or indication that existing alarms are viewed as inadequate."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"Coupled-state onset forecasting and mode-targeted damping offer a clear potential advantage over individual thresholds and peak suppression, but no held-out forecasting improvement or target-versus-sham control effect has been demonstrated."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The combination of modal identification, non-normality checks, validity gates, and mode-targeted actuation is specific and testable, but prior art is explicitly unsearched, so distinctiveness is unresolved."},"technical_implementability":{"score":3,"rationale":"The design uses synchronized sensor data, local operator fitting, sensitivity sweeps, bounded actuators, and explicit rollback, all plausible on the stated instrumented bench; implementability is constrained by observability, conditioning, mode drift, nonlinearity, and actuator cross-coupling."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"Analysis and experimental authority are explicitly assigned to the principal investigator and facility safety lead, and the proposed first experiment remains under existing trip limits; actual willingness and resource availability are unknown."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The packet supplies baselines, held-out comparisons, problem and intervention falsifiers, validity gates, sham pulses, halt criteria, and a staged archived-data-to-bench pathway, though archived-data sufficiency is not confirmed."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"The proposal preserves existing interlocks, prohibits autonomous escalation and operational-turbine deployment, restricts extrapolation, and rolls back to the fixed controller or safe shutdown when validity or facility limits fail."},"scalability":{"score":2,"rationale":"The model is explicitly local to a bounded operating window, may fail when flame topology or boundary conditions change, depends on sensor and actuator placement, and cannot be extrapolated to other combustors without new identification and safety validation."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"A bounded prior-art review plus preregistered retrospective analysis of archived runs, including synchronization, local-operator fitting, held-out baseline comparison, conditioning and spectral-gap checks, and an evidence report.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Archived multivariate runs are accessible and sufficiently synchronized.","Existing computing and analysis software are adequate.","No new combustion experiment or major sensor installation is included.","The range includes research labor, data preparation, review, and evaluation."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Prepare and execute low-energy instrumented bench experiments with randomized bounded target-versus-sham actuator pulses, safety review, calibration, run supervision, and post-run modal analysis.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["An instrumented laboratory combustor and compatible actuator already exist.","Existing facility interlocks and trip systems remain in service.","Only bounded bench testing within an approved operating window is included.","The range includes personnel, facility time, calibration, coordination, safety review, and evaluation."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Qualify validity-gated decision support or supervised control for routine use on one instrumented laboratory combustor, including controller integration, broader operating-window validation, procedures, training, compliance, and independent safety evaluation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Launch is limited to a laboratory combustor and excludes operational turbines or untested systems.","Multiple repeated campaigns are required to characterize drift, cross-mode excitation, and rollback behavior.","Existing fuel, sensing, actuation, and shutdown infrastructure can be adapted rather than replaced.","Autonomous expansion of actuator authority is excluded."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Recurring calibration, supervised validation runs, model refitting, drift monitoring, data review, maintenance, software support, safety reassessment, and operator training for one laboratory installation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Routine use requires periodic re-identification as operating conditions and hardware change.","Facility staff continue to supervise actuator-enabled runs.","Major combustor reconstruction, turbine deployment, and replacement of core instrumentation are excluded."]}},"research_burden":"HIGH","earliest_credible_horizon":"0_TO_3_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate describes a measurable damaging-oscillation hazard and a concrete baseline, but supplies no external evidence that hidden coupled-mode growth is reproducible, prevalent, or materially underserved in prospective adopter facilities."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"Combustion researchers and facility safety operators are named as adopters, with analysis authority assigned to the principal investigator and experimental authority assigned to the facility safety lead."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The proposal can be tested for earlier held-out onset prediction than individual-sensor or frequency thresholds and for reduced modal growth or delayed onset under target versus sham pulses."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"Archived-run analysis can be preregistered, restricted to a stated operating window, evaluated on held-out runs, and stopped without live control or equipment exposure."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The first retrospective step is non-interventional, and any later bench trial requires safety-lead approval, remains below existing trip limits, preserves interlocks, and has explicit abort and rollback conditions."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The packet identifies the necessary combustor, synchronized sensors, actuators, analysis, safety coordination, and staged experiment, permitting broad resource-equivalent ranges despite low confidence about existing asset availability."}},"blocking_evidence":["Reproducibility of an identifiable growing coupled mode across repeated pre-onset runs.","Held-out forecasting advantage over individual-sensor and frequency-peak baselines.","Acceptable residuals, conditioning, spectral separation, observability, and mode-shape stability within a useful operating window.","Target-versus-sham evidence that bounded actuation reduces estimated modal growth or delays onset without exciting another hazardous mode or approaching flameout.","External confirmation that prospective laboratories experience this problem often enough and value the proposed improvement.","Prior-art evidence establishing whether the validity-gated, mode-targeted combination offers a genuinely distinct incremental claim.","Facility-specific confirmation of archived-data quality, actuator compatibility, safety-review burden, and available resources."],"next_evidence_step":"Run a preregistered retrospective study on repeated archived pre-onset runs within one fixed operating window. Fit the coupled local operator on training runs and compare held-out onset forecasts against pressure-RMS and frequency-peak baselines. Stop or redirect if there is no reproducible growing direction, validity gates fail, or forecast performance is indistinguishable within uncertainty; do not perform live actuation in this step.","research_questions":["Do repeated runs contain a stable, observable coupled pressure–heat-release direction with positive estimated growth before onset?","Does the modal forecast improve held-out onset warning time or error relative to pressure-RMS and frequency-peak thresholds?","Can eigenmode growth be distinguished reliably from non-normal transient amplification and nonlinear switching?","How sensitive are mode identity and conditioning to sensor placement, flame topology, boundary conditions, and operating-window width?","Do bounded target pulses reduce selected-mode growth or delay onset relative to randomized sham pulses without increasing another mode or flameout risk?","Which elements of local operator identification, non-normality safeguards, validity gating, and mode-targeted actuation are distinct from prior work?","Would principal investigators and safety leads authorize and resource this workflow given existing alarms, shutdown procedures, and experimental priorities?","What recalibration and validation burden is required after hardware or operating-condition changes?"] ,"recommendation":"PRIOR_ART_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["Prior art is unsearched, so novelty, prevalence, and competitive differentiation cannot be asserted.","All proposed physical relationships and performance gains remain hypotheses rather than observed results.","The presence of an instrumented combustor and named actors does not establish data quality, asset availability, budget, or adopter willingness.","Local linear modes may be invalid under nonlinear switching, rapid flame-topology change, near-degeneracy, or strong non-normality.","Unobserved hazardous modes and actuator cross-coupling could invalidate apparently favorable results.","Cost bands are broad resource-equivalent estimates based only on the stated experimental scope and exclude operational-turbine deployment.","The earliest horizon applies only to retrospective first evidence if usable archived data are immediately available, not to validated control launch."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"No conclusion is made about existing thermoacoustic modal-identification or active-control methods, their prevalence, or whether this proposal is novel. The sealed packet explicitly labels prior art unsearched; a scoped external comparison is required before asserting distinctiveness."}