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CFD Analysis of a Uni-directional Impulse Turbine for Wave Energy Conversion
Title
CFD Analysis of a Uni-directional Impulse Turbine for Wave Energy Conversion.
Creator
Velez, Carlos, Ilie, Marcel, Lin, Kuo-Chi, Qu, Zhihua, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Ocean energy research has grown in popularity in the past decade and has producedvarious designs for wave energy extraction. This thesis focuses on the performance analysis of auni-directional impulse turbine for wave energy conversion. Uni-directional impulse turbines canproduce uni-directional rotation in bi-directional flow, which makes it ideal for wave energyextraction as the motion of ocean waves are inherently bi-directional. This impulse turbine iscurrently in use in four of the world...
Show moreOcean energy research has grown in popularity in the past decade and has producedvarious designs for wave energy extraction. This thesis focuses on the performance analysis of auni-directional impulse turbine for wave energy conversion. Uni-directional impulse turbines canproduce uni-directional rotation in bi-directional flow, which makes it ideal for wave energyextraction as the motion of ocean waves are inherently bi-directional. This impulse turbine iscurrently in use in four of the world's Oscillating Wave Columns (OWC). Current research todate has documented the performance of the turbine but little research has been completed tounderstand the flow physics in the turbine channel. An analytical model and computational fluiddynamic simulations are used with reference to experimental results found in the literature todevelop accurate models of the turbine performance. To carry out the numerical computationsvarious turbulence models are employed and compared. The comparisons indicate that a lowReynolds number Yang-shih K-Epsilon turbulence model is the most computationally efficientwhile providing accurate results. Additionally, analyses of the losses in the turbine are isolatedand documented.Results indicate that large separation regions occur on the turbine blades whichdrastically affect the torque created by the turbine, the location of flow separation is documentedand compared among various flow regimes. The model and simulations show good agreementwith the experimental results and the two proposed solutions enhance the performance of theturbine showing an approximate 10% increase in efficiency based on simulation results.
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Date Issued
2011
Identifier
CFE0004173, ucf:49049
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004173
Optimization of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plants
Title
Optimization of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plants.
Creator
Rizea, Steven, Ilie, Marcel, Bai, Yuanli, Vasu Sumathi, Subith, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
A proprietary Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) modeling tool, the Makai OTEC Thermodynamic and Economic Model (MOTEM), is leveraged to evaluate the accuracy of finite-time thermodynamic OTEC optimization methods. MOTEM is a full OTEC system simulator capable of evaluating the effects of variation in heat exchanger operating temperatures and seawater flow rates. The evaluation is based on a comparison of the net power output of an OTEC plant with a fixed configuration. Select...
Show moreA proprietary Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) modeling tool, the Makai OTEC Thermodynamic and Economic Model (MOTEM), is leveraged to evaluate the accuracy of finite-time thermodynamic OTEC optimization methods. MOTEM is a full OTEC system simulator capable of evaluating the effects of variation in heat exchanger operating temperatures and seawater flow rates. The evaluation is based on a comparison of the net power output of an OTEC plant with a fixed configuration. Select optimization methods from the literature are shown to produce between 93% and 99% of the maximum possible amount of power, depending on the selection of heat exchanger performance curves. OTEC optimization is found to be dependent on the performance characteristics of the evaporator and condenser used in the plant. Optimization algorithms in the literature do not take heat exchanger performance variation into account, which causes a discrepancy between their predictions and those calculated with MOTEM. A new characteristic metric of OTEC optimization, the ratio of evaporator and condenser overall heat transfer coefficients, is found. The heat transfer ratio is constant for all plant configurations in which the seawater flow rate is optimized for any particular evaporator and condenser operating temperatures. The existence of this ratio implies that a solution for the ideal heat exchanger operating temperatures could be computed based on the ratio of heat exchanger performance curves, and additional research is recommended.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004430, ucf:49343
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004430
Towards Scalable Nanomanufacturing: Modeling the Interaction of Charged Droplets from Electrospray using GPU
Title
Towards Scalable Nanomanufacturing: Modeling the Interaction of Charged Droplets from Electrospray using GPU.
Creator
Yang, Weiwei, Deng, Weiwei, Chen, Ruey-Hung, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Electrospray is an atomization method subject to intense study recently due to its monodispersity and the wide size range of droplets it can produce, from nanometers to hundreds of micrometers. This thesis focuses on the numerical and theoretical modeling of the interaction of charged droplets from the single and multiplexed electrospray. We studied two typical scenarios: large area film depositions using multiplexed electrospray and fine pattern printings assisted by linear electrostatic...
Show moreElectrospray is an atomization method subject to intense study recently due to its monodispersity and the wide size range of droplets it can produce, from nanometers to hundreds of micrometers. This thesis focuses on the numerical and theoretical modeling of the interaction of charged droplets from the single and multiplexed electrospray. We studied two typical scenarios: large area film depositions using multiplexed electrospray and fine pattern printings assisted by linear electrostatic quadrupole focusing. Due to the high computation power requirement in the unsteady n-body problem, graphical processing unit (GPU) which delivers 10 Tera flops in computation power is used to dramatically speed up the numerical simulation both efficiently and with low cost. For large area film deposition, both the spray profile and deposition number density are studied for different arrangements of electrospray and electrodes. Multiplexed electrospray with hexagonal nozzle configuration can not give us uniform deposition though it has the highest packing density. Uniform film deposition with variation (<) 5% in thickness was observed with the linear nozzle configuration combined with relative motion between ES source and deposition substrate. For fine pattern printing, linear quadrupole is used to focus the droplets in the radial direction while maintaining a constant driving field at the axial direction. Simulation shows that the linear quadrupole can focus the droplets to a resolution of a few nanometers quickly when the inter-droplet separation is larger than a certain value. Resolution began to deteriorate drastically when the inter-droplet separation is smaller than that value. This study will shed light on using electrospray as a scalable nanomanufacturing approach.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004463, ucf:49333
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004463
A Bench Top Study of the Optimization of LVAD Cannula Implantation to Reduce Risk of Cerebral Embolism
Title
A Bench Top Study of the Optimization of LVAD Cannula Implantation to Reduce Risk of Cerebral Embolism.
Creator
Clark, William, Kassab, Alain, Divo, Eduardo, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Physical bench top experiments are performed to validate and complement ongoing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses of ventricular assist device (VAD) circulation. VADs are used in patients whose hearts do not function to their maximum potential due advanced stages of heart disease and, consequently, are unable to adequately supply blood to the systemic circulation. VADs are commonly utilized as a bridge-to-transplantation, meaning that they are implanted in patients while waiting for...
Show morePhysical bench top experiments are performed to validate and complement ongoing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses of ventricular assist device (VAD) circulation. VADs are used in patients whose hearts do not function to their maximum potential due advanced stages of heart disease and, consequently, are unable to adequately supply blood to the systemic circulation. VADs are commonly utilized as a bridge-to-transplantation, meaning that they are implanted in patients while waiting for a heart transplant. In such cases of long term utilization of VADs, it has been reported in the literatures that thrombo-embolic cerebral events occur in 14-47% of patients over the period of 6 to 12 months. This is a result of thrombus forming despite the use of anticoagulants and advances in VAD design. Accepting current rates of thrombo-embolisms, the main objective of the project is to identify and propose an optimal surgical cannula implantation orientation aimed at reducing the rate of thrombi reaching the carotid and vertebral arteries and thus reduce the morbidity and mortality rate associated with the long term use of VADs to patients suffering from advanced heart failure. The main focus of the experiment is on the physical aspect using a synthetic anatomically correct model constructed by rapid prototyping of the human aortic arch and surrounding vessels. Three VAD cannula implantation configurations are studied with and without bypass to the left carotid artery or to the Innominate artery with ligation of the branch vessel at its root. A mixture of water and glycerin serves to match blood viscosity measured with a rotating cone-plate viscometer. The Reynolds number in the ascending aorta is matched in the flow model. A closed loop mock circulatory system is then realized. In order to match the Reynolds number in the ascending aorta and LVAD cannula with that of the CFD model, a volumetric flow rate of 2.7 liters per minute is supplied through the synthetic VAD cannula and 0.9 liter per minute is supplied to the ascending aorta. Flow rates are measured using rotary flow meters and a pressure sensor is used to ensure a mean operating pressure of 100 mmHg is maintained. Synthetic acrylic blood clots are injected at the inlet of the VAD cannula and they are captured and counted at the vertebral and carotid arteries. The sizes of the thrombi simulated are 2, 3.5 and 5 mm which are typical of the range of diameters encountered in practice. Nearly 300 particles are released over 5 separate runs for each diameter, and overall embolization rates as well as individual embolization rates are evaluated along with associated confidence levels. The experimental results show consistency between CFD and experiment. Means comparison of thromboembolization rates predicted by CFD and bench-top results using a Z-score statistic with a 95% confidence level results in 22 of 24 cases being statistically equal. This study provides confidence in the predictive capabilities of the bench-top model as a methodology that can be utilized in upcoming studies utilizing patient-specific aortic bed model.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004365, ucf:49412
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004365
Transient Multi-scale Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Model for Thrombus Tracking in an Assit Device Vascular Bed
Title
Transient Multi-scale Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Model for Thrombus Tracking in an Assit Device Vascular Bed.
Creator
Osorio, Ruben, Kassab, Alain, Divo, Eduardo, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Heart failure occurs when the heart is not capable to pump blood at a sufficient rate to meet the demands of the body. Depending on the health of the heart, doctors may recommend a heart transplant, but finding a suitable donor is often a long duration process and the patient might be at an advance condition or the patient is not adequate for a heart transplant. In such cases Ventricular assist devices (VAD) are implemented. The purpose of a VAD is to aid the heart to pump the correct amount...
Show moreHeart failure occurs when the heart is not capable to pump blood at a sufficient rate to meet the demands of the body. Depending on the health of the heart, doctors may recommend a heart transplant, but finding a suitable donor is often a long duration process and the patient might be at an advance condition or the patient is not adequate for a heart transplant. In such cases Ventricular assist devices (VAD) are implemented. The purpose of a VAD is to aid the heart to pump the correct amount of blood, by doing so it relives the load that is put on the heart while giving the patient a chance for recovery. This study focuses on observing the hemodynamic effects of implementing a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) along the aortic arch and main arteries. Thrombi creation and transportation is other subject included in the study, due to the fact that thrombi can obstruct blood flow to critical arteries, manly carotid and vertebral. Occlusion of these can lead to a stroke with devastating effects on the neurocognitive functions and even death.A multi-scale CFD analysis a patient specific geometry model is used as well as a lumped system which provides the correct conditions in order to simulate the whole cardiovascular system. The main goal of the study is to understand the difference in flow behavior created by the unsteady pulsatile boundary conditions. The model described in this work has a total cardiac output of 7.0 Liters/ minute, this for a healthy heart. Two cardiac output splits are used to simulate heart failure conditions. The first split consists of 5 Liters/minute flowing through the LVAD cannula and 2 Liters/minute via the aortic root. The second scenario is when heartivfailure is critical, meaning that zero flow is being output by the left ventricle, thus a split of 7 Liter/minute trough the LVAD cannula and 0 Liters/minute traveling through the aortic root. A statistical analysis for the thrombi motion throughout the patient aortic arch was performed in order to quantify the influence that pulsatile flow has on the particles being track. Spherical particles of 2mm, 4mm and 5mm were released and accounted in the statistical analysis for each of the two split configurations. The study focuses on particles that escaped on the outlet boundaries of the upper arteries (Right Carotid, Left Carotid, and Vertebral). Results exhibit the statistical comparison of means for each particle diameter as well as for the overall probability for the steady and unsteady flow condition.
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Date Issued
2013
Identifier
CFE0004905, ucf:49633
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004905
Investigation of Multiscale Fluid Structure Interaction Modeling of Flow in Arterial Systems
Title
Investigation of Multiscale Fluid Structure Interaction Modeling of Flow in Arterial Systems.
Creator
Sotelo, Sebastian, Kassab, Alain, Ilie, Marcel, Divo, Eduardo, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The study of hemodynamic patterns in large blood vessels, such as the ascending aortic artery, brachiocephalic trunk, right carotid artery and right subclavian artery presents the challenging complexity of vessel wall compliance induced by the high levels of shear stress gradients and blood flow pulsatility. Accurate prediction of hemodynamics in such conditions requires a complete Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis that couples the fluid flow behavior throughout the cardiac cycle...
Show moreThe study of hemodynamic patterns in large blood vessels, such as the ascending aortic artery, brachiocephalic trunk, right carotid artery and right subclavian artery presents the challenging complexity of vessel wall compliance induced by the high levels of shear stress gradients and blood flow pulsatility. Accurate prediction of hemodynamics in such conditions requires a complete Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis that couples the fluid flow behavior throughout the cardiac cycle with the structural response of the vessel walls. This research focuses on the computational study of a Multiscale Fluid-Structure Interaction on the arterial wall by coupling Finite Volumes Method (FVM) predictions of the Fluid Dynamics within the artery with Finite Elements Method (FEM) predictions of the Elasto-Dynamics response of the arterial walls and 1-D closed loop electrical circuit system to generate the dynamic pressure pulse. To this end, a commercial FVM Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code (STAR-CCM+ 7.09.012) will be coupled through an external interface with a commercial FEM Elasto-Dynamics code (ABAQUS V6.12). The coupling interface is written in such a way that the wall shear stresses and pressures predicted by the CFD analysis will be passed as boundary conditions to the FEM structural solver. The deformations predicted by the FEM structural solver will be passed to the CFD solver to update the geometry in an implicit manner before the following iteration step. The coupling between the FSI and the 1-D closed loop lump parameter circuit updated the pressure pulse and mass flow rates generated by the circuit in an explicit manner after the periodic solution in the FSI analysis had settled. The methodology resulting from this study will be incorporated in a larger collaborative research program between UCF and ORHS that entails optimization of surgical implantation of Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD) cannulae and bypass grafts with the aim to minimize thrombo-embolic events. Moreover, the work proposed will also be applied to another such collaborative project focused on the computational fluid dynamics modeling of the circulation of congenitally affected cardiovascular systems of neonates, specifically the Norwood and Hybrid Norwood circulation of children affected by the hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
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Date Issued
2013
Identifier
CFE0004753, ucf:49794
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004753
Response of Electrified Micro-Jets to Electrohydrodynamic Perturbations
Title
Response of Electrified Micro-Jets to Electrohydrodynamic Perturbations.
Creator
Yang, Weiwei, Deng, Weiwei, Chen, Ruey-Hung, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The breakup of liquid jets is ubiquitous with rich underpinning physics and widespread applications. The natural breakup of liquid jets originates from small ambient perturbations, which can grow exponentially until the amplitude as large as the jet radius is reached. For unelectrified inviscid jets, surface energy analysis shows that only the axisymmetric perturbation is possibly unstable, and this mode is referred as varicose instability. For electrified jets, the presence of surface charge...
Show moreThe breakup of liquid jets is ubiquitous with rich underpinning physics and widespread applications. The natural breakup of liquid jets originates from small ambient perturbations, which can grow exponentially until the amplitude as large as the jet radius is reached. For unelectrified inviscid jets, surface energy analysis shows that only the axisymmetric perturbation is possibly unstable, and this mode is referred as varicose instability. For electrified jets, the presence of surface charge enables additional unstable modes, among which the most common one is the whipping (or kink) instability that bends and stretches the charged jet that is responsible for the phenomena of electrospinning. A closer examination of the two instabilities suggests that due to mass conservation, the uneven jet stretching from whipping may translate into radial perturbations and trigger varicose instabilities. Although the varicose and whipping instabilities of electrified micro-jets have both been extensively studied separately, there is little attention paid to the combined effect of these two, which may lead to new jet breakup phenomena. This dissertation investigates the dynamic response of electrified jets under transverse electrohydrodynamic (EHD) perturbations which were introduced by exciters driven by alternating voltage of sweeping frequency. Three different jetting mechanisms are used to generate jets with various ranges of jet diameters: ~150 micrometer inertial jets from liquid pressurized through a small orifice, ~50 micrometer flow focused jets, and ~20 micrometer electrified Taylor-cone jets. The transverse perturbations enable systematic triggering of varicose and whipping instabilities, and consequently a wide range of remarkable phenomena emerge. For inertial jets with zero or low charge levels, only varicose instability is observable due to suppressed whipping instability. At modest charge levels, inertia jets can respond to the fundamental perturbation frequency as well as the second harmonic of the perturbation frequency. Highly charged jets such as fine jets generated from Taylor cones exhibit distinct behavior for different perturbation wavenumber x. Typical behavior include: whipping jets with superimposed varicose instability at small x, jet bifurcation from crossover of whipping and varicose instabilities at x~0.5, Coulombic fission owing to the surge of surface charge density as the slender liquid segments recover spherical shapes at x~0.7, and simple varicose mode near wave numbers of unity. The phenomena observed in this work may be explained by a linear model and rationalized by the phase diagram in the space of wave number and dimensionless charge levels. The experimental apparatus used in this dissertation is simple, non-intrusive, and scalable to a linear array of jets. The rich phenomena combined with the versatile apparatus may spawn new research directions such as regulated electrospinning, generating strictly monodisperse micro/nano droplets, and manufacturing of non-spherical particles from drying droplets that undergo controlled Coulombic fissions.
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Date Issued
2014
Identifier
CFE0005744, ucf:50086
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005744
Modeling of Thermal Properties of Fiber Glass Polyester Resin Composite Under Thermal Degradation Condition
Title
Modeling of Thermal Properties of Fiber Glass Polyester Resin Composite Under Thermal Degradation Condition.
Creator
Tsoi, Marvin, Chen, Ruey-Hung, Gou, Jihua, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Composites, though used in a variety of applications from chairs and office supplies to structures of U.S. Navy ships and aircrafts, are not all designed to hold up to extreme heat flux and high temperature. Fiber-reinforced polymeric composites (FRPC) have been proven to provide the much needed physical and mechanical properties under fire exposure. FRPC notable features are its combination of high specific tensile strength, low weight, along with good corrosion and fatigue resistance....
Show moreComposites, though used in a variety of applications from chairs and office supplies to structures of U.S. Navy ships and aircrafts, are not all designed to hold up to extreme heat flux and high temperature. Fiber-reinforced polymeric composites (FRPC) have been proven to provide the much needed physical and mechanical properties under fire exposure. FRPC notable features are its combination of high specific tensile strength, low weight, along with good corrosion and fatigue resistance. However FRPC are susceptible to thermal degradation and decomposition, which yields flammable gas, and are thus highly combustible. This property restricts polymeric material usage.This study developed a numerical model that simulated the degradation rate and temperature profiles of a fiber-reinforced polyester resin composite exposed to a constant heat flux and hydrocarbon fire in a cone calorimeter. A numerical model is an essential tool because it gives the composite designer the ability to predict results in a time and cost efficient manner. The goal of this thesis is to develop a numerical model to simulate a zonal-layer polyester resin and fiber-glass mat composite and then validate the model with experimental results from a cone calorimeter. By inputting the thermal properties of the layered composite of alternating polymer and polymer-infused glass fiber mat layers, the numerical model is one step closer to representing the experimental data from the cone calorimeter test. The final results are achieved through adding a simulated heat flux from the pilot ignition of the degraded gas of the polyester resin. The results can be coupled into a mechanical model, which may be separately constructed for future study on the mechanical strength of composites under fire conditions.
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Date Issued
2011
Identifier
CFE0004171, ucf:49076
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004171
Implementation And Performance Comparisons For The Crisfield And Stiff Arc Length Methods In FEA
Title
Implementation And Performance Comparisons For The Crisfield And Stiff Arc Length Methods In FEA.
Creator
Silvers, Thomas, Gordon, Ali, Nicholson, David, Kassab, Alain, Ilie, Marcel, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
In Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) applied to structures, displacements at which the tangent stiffness matrix KT becomes singular are called critical points, and correspond to instabilities such as buckling or elastoplastic softening (e.g., necking). Prior to the introduction of Arc Length Methods (ALMs), critical points posed severe computational challenges, which was unfortunate since behavior at instabilities is of great interest as a precursor to structural failure. The original...
Show moreIn Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) applied to structures, displacements at which the tangent stiffness matrix KT becomes singular are called critical points, and correspond to instabilities such as buckling or elastoplastic softening (e.g., necking). Prior to the introduction of Arc Length Methods (ALMs), critical points posed severe computational challenges, which was unfortunate since behavior at instabilities is of great interest as a precursor to structural failure. The original ALM was shown to be capable in some circumstances of continued computation at critical points, but limited success and unattractive features of the formulation were noted and addressed in extensive subsequent research. The widely used Crisfield Cylindrical and Spherical ALMs may be viewed as representing the 'state-of-the-art'. The more recent Stiff Arc Length method, which is attractive on fundamental grounds, was introduced in 2004, but without implementation, benchmarking or performance assessment. The present thesis addresses (a) implementation and (b) performance comparisons for the Crisfield and Stiff methods, using simple benchmarks formulated to incorporate elastoplastic softening. It is seen that, in contrast to the Crisfield methods, the Stiff ALM consistently continues accurate computation at, near and beyond critical points.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004277, ucf:49544
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004277
Holistic Representations for Activities and Crowd Behaviors
Title
Holistic Representations for Activities and Crowd Behaviors.
Creator
Solmaz, Berkan, Shah, Mubarak, Da Vitoria Lobo, Niels, Jha, Sumit, Ilie, Marcel, Moore, Brian, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
In this dissertation, we address the problem of analyzing the activities of people in a variety of scenarios, this is commonly encountered in vision applications. The overarching goal is to devise new representations for the activities, in settings where individuals or a number of people may take a part in specific activities. Different types of activities can be performed by either an individual at the fine level or by several people constituting a crowd at the coarse level. We take into...
Show moreIn this dissertation, we address the problem of analyzing the activities of people in a variety of scenarios, this is commonly encountered in vision applications. The overarching goal is to devise new representations for the activities, in settings where individuals or a number of people may take a part in specific activities. Different types of activities can be performed by either an individual at the fine level or by several people constituting a crowd at the coarse level. We take into account the domain specific information for modeling these activities. The summary of the proposed solutions is presented in the following.The holistic description of videos is appealing for visual detection and classification tasks for several reasons including capturing the spatial relations between the scene components, simplicity, and performance [1, 2, 3]. First, we present a holistic (global) frequency spectrum based descriptor for representing the atomic actions performed by individuals such as: bench pressing, diving, hand waving, boxing, playing guitar, mixing, jumping, horse riding, hula hooping etc. We model and learn these individual actions for classifying complex user uploaded videos. Our method bypasses the detection of interest points, the extraction of local video descriptors and the quantization of local descriptors into a code book; it represents each video sequence as a single feature vector. This holistic feature vector is computed by applying a bank of 3-D spatio-temporal filters on the frequency spectrum of a video sequence; hence it integrates the information about the motion and scene structure. We tested our approach on two of the most challenging datasets, UCF50 [4] and HMDB51 [5], and obtained promising results which demonstrates the robustness and the discriminative power of our holistic video descriptor for classifying videos of various realistic actions.In the above approach, a holistic feature vector of a video clip is acquired by dividing the video into spatio-temporal blocks then concatenating the features of the individual blocks together. However, such a holistic representation blindly incorporates all the video regions regardless of their contribution in classification. Next, we present an approach which improves the performance of the holistic descriptors for activity recognition. In our novel method, we improve the holistic descriptors by discovering the discriminative video blocks. We measure the discriminativity of a block by examining its response to a pre-learned support vector machine model. In particular, a block is considered discriminative if it responds positively for positive training samples, and negatively for negative training samples. We pose the problem of finding the optimal blocks as a problem of selecting a sparse set of blocks, which maximizes the total classifier discriminativity. Through a detailed set of experiments on benchmark datasets [6, 7, 8, 9, 5, 10], we show that our method discovers the useful regions in the videos and eliminates the ones which are confusing for classification, which results in significant performance improvement over the state-of-the-art.In contrast to the scenes where an individual performs a primitive action, there may be scenes with several people, where crowd behaviors may take place. For these types of scenes the traditional approaches for recognition will not work due to severe occlusion and computational requirements. The number of videos is limited and the scenes are complicated, hence learning these behaviors is not feasible. For this problem, we present a novel approach, based on the optical flow in a video sequence, for identifying five specific and common crowd behaviors in visual scenes. In the algorithm, the scene is overlaid by a grid of particles, initializing a dynamical system which is derived from the optical flow. Numerical integration of the optical flow provides particle trajectories that represent the motion in the scene. Linearization of the dynamical system allows a simple and practical analysis and classification of the behavior through the Jacobian matrix. Essentially, the eigenvalues of this matrix are used to determine the dynamic stability of points in the flow and each type of stability corresponds to one of the five crowd behaviors. The identified crowd behaviors are (1) bottlenecks: where many pedestrians/vehicles from various points in the scene are entering through one narrow passage, (2) fountainheads: where many pedestrians/vehicles are emerging from a narrow passage only to separate in many directions, (3) lanes: where many pedestrians/vehicles are moving at the same speeds in the same direction, (4) arches or rings: where the collective motion is curved or circular, and (5) blocking: where there is a opposing motion and desired movement of groups of pedestrians is somehow prohibited. The implementation requires identifying a region of interest in the scene, and checking the eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix in that region to determine the type of flow, that corresponds to various well-defined crowd behaviors. The eigenvalues are only considered in these regions of interest, consistent with the linear approximation and the implied behaviors. Since changes in eigenvalues can mean changes in stability, corresponding to changes in behavior, we can repeat the algorithm over clips of long video sequences to locate changes in behavior. This method was tested on over real videos representing crowd and traffic scenes.
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Date Issued
2013
Identifier
CFE0004941, ucf:49638
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004941
Thermoacoustic Reimann Solver Finite Volume Method with Application to Turbulent Premixed Gas Turbine Combustion Instability
Title
Thermoacoustic Reimann Solver Finite Volume Method with Application to Turbulent Premixed Gas Turbine Combustion Instability.
Creator
Johnson, Perry, Kapat, Jayanta, Ilie, Marcel, Vasu Sumathi, Subith, Shivamoggi, Bhimsen, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
This thesis describes the development, verification, and validation of a three dimensional time domain thermoacoustic solver. The purpose of the solver is to predict the frequencies, modeshapes, linear growth rates, and limit cycle amplitudes for combustion instability modes in gas turbine combustion chambers. The linearized Euler equations with nonlinear heat release source terms are solved using the finite volume method. The treatment of mean density gradients was found to be vital to the...
Show moreThis thesis describes the development, verification, and validation of a three dimensional time domain thermoacoustic solver. The purpose of the solver is to predict the frequencies, modeshapes, linear growth rates, and limit cycle amplitudes for combustion instability modes in gas turbine combustion chambers. The linearized Euler equations with nonlinear heat release source terms are solved using the finite volume method. The treatment of mean density gradients was found to be vital to the success of frequency and modeshape predictions due to the sharp density gradients that occur across deflagration waves. In order to treat mean density gradients with physical fidelity, a non-conservative finite volume method based on the wave propagation approach to the Riemann problem is applied. For modelling unsteady heat release, user input flexibility is maximized using a virtual class hierarchy within the OpenFOAM C++ library. Unsteady heat release based on time lag models are demonstrated. The solver gives accurate solutions compared with analytical methods for one-dimensional cases involving mean density gradients, cross-sectional area changes, uniform mean flow, arbitrary impedance boundary conditions, and unsteady heat release in a one-dimensional Rijke tube. The solver predicted resonant frequencies within 1% of the analytical solution for these verification cases, with the dominant component of the error coming from the finite time interval over which the simulation is performed. The linear growth rates predicted by the solver for the Rijke tube verification were within 5% of the theoretical values, provided that numerical dissipation effects were controlled. Finally, the solver is then used to predict the frequencies and limit cycle amplitudes for two lab scale experiments in which detailed acoustics data are available for comparison. For experiments at the University of Melbourne, an empirical flame describing function was provided. The present simulation code predicted a limit cycle of 0.21 times the mean pressure, which was in close agreement with the estimate of 0.25 from the experimental data. The experiments at Purdue University do not yet have an empirical flame model, so a general vortex-shedding model is proposed on physical grounds. It is shown that the coefficients of the model can be tuned to match the limit cycle amplitude of the 2L mode from the experiment with the same accuracy as the Melbourne case. The code did not predict the excitation of the 4L mode, therefore it is concluded that the vortex-shedding model is not sufficient and must be supplemented with additional heat release models to capture the entirety of the physics for this experiment.
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Date Issued
2013
Identifier
CFE0005098, ucf:50730
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005098