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Description
Lidar has demonstrated its utility in meteorological studies, wind resource assessment, and wind farm control. More recently, lidar has gained widespread attention for autonomous vehicles.

The first part of the dissertation begins with an application of a coherent Doppler lidar to wind gust characterization for wind farm control. This application focuses

Lidar has demonstrated its utility in meteorological studies, wind resource assessment, and wind farm control. More recently, lidar has gained widespread attention for autonomous vehicles.

The first part of the dissertation begins with an application of a coherent Doppler lidar to wind gust characterization for wind farm control. This application focuses on wind gusts on a scale from 100 m to 1000 m. A detecting and tracking algorithm is proposed to extract gusts from a wind field and track their movement. The algorithm was implemented for a three-hour, two-dimensional wind field retrieved from the measurements of a coherent Doppler lidar. The Gaussian distribution of the gust spanwise deviation from the streamline was demonstrated. Size dependency of gust deviations is discussed. A prediction model estimating the impact of gusts with respect to arrival time and the probability of arrival locations is introduced. The prediction model was applied to a virtual wind turbine array, and estimates are given for which wind turbines would be impacted.

The second part of this dissertation describes a Time-of-Flight lidar simulation. The lidar simulation includes a laser source module, a propagation module, a receiver module, and a timing module. A two-dimensional pulse model is introduced in the laser source module. The sampling rate for the pulse model is explored. The propagation module takes accounts of beam divergence, target characteristics, atmosphere, and optics. The receiver module contains models of noise and analog filters in a lidar receiver. The effect of analog filters on the signal behavior was investigated. The timing module includes a Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) module and an Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC) module. In the TDC module, several walk-error compensation methods for leading-edge detection and multiple timing algorithms were modeled and tested on simulated signals. In the ADC module, a benchmark (BM) timing algorithm is proposed. A Neyman-Pearson (NP) detector was implemented in the time domain and frequency domain (fast Fourier transform (FFT) approach). The FFT approach with frequency-domain zero-paddings improves the timing resolution. The BM algorithm was tested on simulated signals, and the NP detector was evaluated on both simulated signals and measurements from a prototype lidar (Bhaskaran, 2018).
ContributorsZhou, Kai (Author) / Calhoun, Ronald (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Kangping (Committee member) / Tang, Wenbo (Committee member) / Peet, Yulia (Committee member) / Krishnamurthy, Raghavendra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
Earth-system models describe the interacting components of the climate system and

technological systems that affect society, such as communication infrastructures. Data

assimilation addresses the challenge of state specification by incorporating system

observations into the model estimates. In this research, a particular data

assimilation technique called the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) is

applied

Earth-system models describe the interacting components of the climate system and

technological systems that affect society, such as communication infrastructures. Data

assimilation addresses the challenge of state specification by incorporating system

observations into the model estimates. In this research, a particular data

assimilation technique called the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) is

applied to the ionosphere, which is a domain of practical interest due to its effects

on infrastructures that depend on satellite communication and remote sensing. This

dissertation consists of three main studies that propose strategies to improve space-

weather specification during ionospheric extreme events, but are generally applicable

to Earth-system models:

Topic I applies the LETKF to estimate ion density with an idealized model of

the ionosphere, given noisy synthetic observations of varying sparsity. Results show

that the LETKF yields accurate estimates of the ion density field and unobserved

components of neutral winds even when the observation density is spatially sparse

(2% of grid points) and there is large levels (40%) of Gaussian observation noise.

Topic II proposes a targeted observing strategy for data assimilation, which uses

the influence matrix diagnostic to target errors in chosen state variables. This

strategy is applied in observing system experiments, in which synthetic electron density

observations are assimilated with the LETKF into the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-

Electrodynamics Global Circulation Model (TIEGCM) during a geomagnetic storm.

Results show that assimilating targeted electron density observations yields on

average about 60%–80% reduction in electron density error within a 600 km radius of

the observed location, compared to 15% reduction obtained with randomly placed

vertical profiles.

Topic III proposes a methodology to account for systematic model bias arising

ifrom errors in parametrized solar and magnetospheric inputs. This strategy is ap-

plied with the TIEGCM during a geomagnetic storm, and is used to estimate the

spatiotemporal variations of bias in electron density predictions during the

transitionary phases of the geomagnetic storm. Results show that this strategy reduces

error in 1-hour predictions of electron density by about 35% and 30% in polar regions

during the main and relaxation phases of the geomagnetic storm, respectively.
ContributorsDurazo, Juan, Ph.D (Author) / Kostelich, Eric J. (Thesis advisor) / Mahalov, Alex (Thesis advisor) / Tang, Wenbo (Committee member) / Moustaoui, Mohamed (Committee member) / Platte, Rodrigo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
The dynamics of a fluid flow inside 2D square and 3D cubic cavities

under various configurations were simulated and analyzed using a

spectral code I developed.

This code was validated against known studies in the 3D lid-driven

cavity. It was then used to explore the various dynamical behaviors

close to the onset

The dynamics of a fluid flow inside 2D square and 3D cubic cavities

under various configurations were simulated and analyzed using a

spectral code I developed.

This code was validated against known studies in the 3D lid-driven

cavity. It was then used to explore the various dynamical behaviors

close to the onset of instability of the steady-state flow, and explain

in the process the mechanism underlying an intermittent bursting

previously observed. A fairly complete bifurcation picture emerged,

using a combination of computational tools such as selective

frequency damping, edge-state tracking and subspace restriction.

The code was then used to investigate the flow in a 2D square cavity

under stable temperature stratification, an idealized version of a lake

with warmer water at the surface compared to the bottom. The governing

equations are the Navier-Stokes equations under the Boussinesq approximation.

Simulations were done over a wide range of parameters of the problem quantifying

the driving velocity at the top (e.g. wind) and the strength of the stratification.

Particular attention was paid to the mechanisms associated with the onset of

instability of the base steady state, and the complex nontrivial dynamics

occurring beyond onset, where the presence of multiple states leads to a

rich spectrum of states, including homoclinic and heteroclinic chaos.

A third configuration investigates the flow dynamics of a fluid in a rapidly

rotating cube subjected to small amplitude modulations. The responses were

quantified by the global helicity and energy measures, and various peak

responses associated to resonances with intrinsic eigenmodes of the cavity

and/or internal retracing beams were clearly identified for the first time.

A novel approach to compute the eigenmodes is also described, making accessible

a whole catalog of these with various properties and dynamics. When the small

amplitude modulation does not align with the rotation axis (precession) we show

that a new set of eigenmodes are primarily excited as the angular velocity

increases, while triadic resonances may occur once the nonlinear regime kicks in.
ContributorsWu, Ke (Author) / Lopez, Juan (Thesis advisor) / Welfert, Bruno (Thesis advisor) / Tang, Wenbo (Committee member) / Platte, Rodrigo (Committee member) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
This honors thesis explores and models the flow of air around a cylindrical arrow that is rotating as it moves through the air. This model represents the airflow around an archery arrow after it is released from the bow and rotates while it flies through the air. This situation is

This honors thesis explores and models the flow of air around a cylindrical arrow that is rotating as it moves through the air. This model represents the airflow around an archery arrow after it is released from the bow and rotates while it flies through the air. This situation is important in archery because an understanding of the airflow allows archers to predict the flight of the arrow. As a result, archers can improve their accuracy and ability to hit targets. However, not many computational fluid dynamic simulations modeling the airflow around a rotating archery arrow exist. This thesis attempts to further the understanding of the airflow around a rotating archery arrow by creating a mathematical model to numerically simulate the airflow around the arrow in the presence of this rotation. This thesis uses a linearized approximation of the Navier Stokes equations to model the airflow around the arrow and explains the reasoning for using this simplification of the fully nonlinear Navier Stokes equations. This thesis continues to describe the discretization of these linearized equations using the finite difference method and the boundary conditions used for these equations. A MATLAB code solves the resulting system of equations in order to obtain a numerical simulation of this airflow around the rotating arrow. The results of the simulation for each velocity component and the pressure distribution are displayed. This thesis then discusses the results of the simulation, and the MATLAB code is analyzed to verify the convergence of the solution. Appendix A includes the full MATLAB code used for the flow simulation. Finally, this thesis explains potential future research topics, ideas, and improvements to the code that can help further the understanding and create more realistic simulations of the airflow around a flying archery arrow.
ContributorsCholinski, Christopher John (Author) / Tang, Wenbo (Thesis director) / Herrmann, Marcus (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05