Tools for fluid simulation control in computer graphics

L’animation basée sur la physique peut générer des systèmes aux comportements complexes et réalistes. Malheureusement, contrôler de tels systèmes est une tâche ardue. Dans le cas de la simulation de fluide, le processus de contrôle est particulièrement complexe. Bien que de nombreuses méthodes et outils ont été mis au point pour simuler et faire le rendu de fluides, trop peu de méthodes offrent un contrôle efficace et intuitif sur une simulation de fluide. Étant donné que le coût associé au contrôle vient souvent s’additionner au coût de la simulation, appliquer un contrôle sur une simulation à plus haute résolution rallonge chaque itération du processus de création. Afin d’accélérer ce processus, l’édition peut se faire sur une simulation basse résolution moins coûteuse. Nous pouvons donc considérer que la création d’un fluide contrôlé peut se diviser en deux phases: une phase de contrôle durant laquelle un artiste modifie le comportement d’une simulation basse résolution, et une phase d’augmentation de détail durant laquelle une version haute résolution de cette simulation est générée. Cette thèse présente deux projets, chacun contribuant à l’état de l’art relié à chacune de ces deux phases. Dans un premier temps, on introduit un nouveau système de contrôle de liquide représenté par un modèle particulaire. À l’aide de ce système, un artiste peut sélectionner dans une base de données une parcelle de liquide animé précalculée. Cette parcelle peut ensuite être placée dans une simulation afin d’en modifier son comportement. À chaque pas de simulation, notre système utilise la liste de parcelles actives afin de reproduire localement la vision de l’artiste. Une interface graphique intuitive a été développée, inspirée par les logiciels de montage vidéo, et permettant à un utilisateur non expert de simplement éditer une simulation de liquide. Dans un second temps, une méthode d’augmentation de détail est décrite. Nous proposons d’ajouter une étape supplémentaire de suivi après l’étape de projection du champ de vitesse d’une simulation de fumée eulérienne classique. Durant cette étape, un champ de perturbations de vitesse non-divergent est calculé, résultant en une meilleure correspondance des densités à haute et à basse résolution. L’animation de fumée résultante reproduit fidèlement l’aspect grossier de la simulation d’entrée, tout en étant augmentée à l’aide de détails simulés.Physics-based animation can generate dynamic systems of very complex and realistic behaviors. Unfortunately, controlling them is a daunting task. In particular, fluid simulation brings up particularly difficult problems to the control process. Although many methods and tools have been developed to convincingly simulate and render fluids, too few methods provide efficient and intuitive control over a simulation. Since control often comes with extra computations on top of the simulation cost, art-directing a high-resolution simulation leads to long iterations of the creative process. In order to shorten this process, editing could be performed on a faster, low-resolution model. Therefore, we can consider that the process of generating an art-directed fluid could be split into two stages: a control stage during which an artist modifies the behavior of a low-resolution simulation, and an upresolution stage during which a final high-resolution version of this simulation is driven. This thesis presents two projects, each one improving on the state of the art related to each of these two stages. First, we introduce a new particle-based liquid control system. Using this system, an artist selects patches of precomputed liquid animations from a database, and places them in a simulation to modify its behavior. At each simulation time step, our system uses these entities to control the simulation in order to reproduce the artist’s vision. An intuitive graphical user interface inspired by video editing tools has been developed, allowing a nontechnical user to simply edit a liquid animation. Second, a tracking solution for smoke upresolution is described. We propose to add an extra tracking step after the projection of a classical Eulerian smoke simulation. During this step, we solve for a divergence-free velocity perturbation field resulting in a better matching of the low-frequency density distribution between the low-resolution guide and the high-resolution simulation. The resulting smoke animation faithfully reproduces the coarse aspect of the low-resolution input, while being enhanced with simulated small-scale details

Visualization Techniques in Space and Atmospheric Sciences

Unprecedented volumes of data will be generated by research programs that investigate the Earth as a system and the origin of the universe, which will in turn require analysis and interpretation that will lead to meaningful scientific insight. Providing a widely distributed research community with the ability to access, manipulate, analyze, and visualize these complex, multidimensional data sets depends on a wide range of computer science and technology topics. Data storage and compression, data base management, computational methods and algorithms, artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and high-resolution display are just a few of the topics addressed. A unifying theme throughout the papers with regards to advanced data handling and visualization is the need for interactivity, speed, user-friendliness, and extensibility

Visualization and Simulation of Laser-Induced Fullerene Fragmentation

The benefit from the research of carbon, an element with one of the highest variety of binding possibilities that is essential for life, has a strong impact in many fields in science as well as in industry. A molecule that is suited to explore more complex systems of carbon atoms due to its highly symmetrical hollow sphere-like structure is C60, one of the best known fullerenes. Still, its dynamics is far from being understood, especially its interaction with ultrashort and strong laser pulses. Simulations can help us to get insights into the dynamics of molecules. In combination with visualization, these dynamics can be analyzed and understood. Leaned to laser experiments with fullerene, performed at LCLS to get further insights into the dynamics of fullerene, this work examines some of their experiments by means of molecular dynamics simulations, which we analyze by our developed visualization techniques. The focus is on the fragmentation dynamics, induced by laser pulses that are used in the experiments. The contribution of this work can be summarized into simulation and visualization. Simulations are required to imitate the experiment, including the modeling of C60 by the choice of force field potentials, the modeling of laser pulses, and their intensities. The results of our simulations are adapted based on results from the experiments. Goals in the visualization are the development of novel analysis techniques. These techniques are for the fragmentation process of fullerene, the fragmentation dynamics by exibility methods, the reconstruction of diffraction images, which can be used as additional medium for the physical analysis, as well as the analysis of the achieved results of this work

Mesoscale modeling and direct simulation of explosively dispersed granular materials

Explosively dispersed granular materials frequently exhibit macroscale coherent particle clustering and jetting structures. The underlying mechanism is of significant interest to study instability and mixing in high-speed gas-solid flows but remains unclear, primarily attributed to the complex mesoscale multiphase interactions involved in the dispersal process. In order to advance the understanding of particle clustering and jetting instabilities, this thesis establishes a numerical framework for solving interface-resolved gas-solid flows with non-deforming bodies that are able to move, contact, and collide. The developed framework is implemented to create a computational solver and then verified using a variety of gas-solid flow problems at different geometric scales. Employing the developed framework and solver, this thesis further studies the particle clustering and jetting instabilities in explosively dispersed granular materials. A Cartesian, 3D, high-resolution, parallelized, gas-solid flow solver is created with the capability of tackling shocked flow conditions, irregular and moving geometries, and multibody collisions. The underlying numerical framework integrates operator splitting for partitioned fluid-solid interaction in the time domain, 2nd/3rd order strong stability-preserving Runge--Kutta methods and 3rd/5th order weighted essentially nonoscillatory schemes for high-resolution tempo-spatial discretization, the front-tracking method for evolving phase interfaces, a new field function developed for facilitating the solution of complex and dynamic fluid-solid systems on Cartesian grids, a new collision model developed for deterministic multibody contact and collision with parameterized coefficients of restitution and friction, and a new immersed boundary method developed for treating arbitrarily irregular and moving boundaries. The developed framework and solver are able to accurately, efficiently, and robustly solve coupled fluid-fluid, fluid-solid, and solid-solid interactions with flow conditions ranging from subsonic to hypersonic states. Employing the developed framework and solver, direct simulations that capture interface-resolved multiphase interactions and deterministic mesoscale granular dynamics are conducted to investigate particle clustering and jetting instabilities. A random sampling algorithm is employed to generate stochastic payload morphologies with randomly distributed particle positions and sizes. Through solving and analyzing cases that cover a set of stochastic payloads, burster states, and coefficients of restitution, a valid statistical dissipative property of the framework in solving explosively dispersed granular materials with respect to Gurney velocity is demonstrated. The predicted surface expansion velocities can extend the time range of the velocity scaling law with regard to Gurney energy in the Gurney theory from the steady-state termination phase to the unsteady evolution phase. When considering the mean surface expansion velocities, the maximum error of the unsteady velocity scaling law is about $0.792\%$ among the investigated Gurney energies. In addition, a dissipation analysis of the current discrete modeling of granular payloads suggests that incorporating the effects of porosity can enhance the prediction of Gurney velocity for explosively dispersed granular payloads. On the basis of direct simulations, an explanation for particle clustering and jetting instabilities is proposed to increase the understanding of established experimental observations in the literature. Results suggest that the development of internal sliding and colliding lines in the shock-compacted granular payload can be critical to the subsequent fracture pattern of the payload. Particle clusters manifested through payload fracture are then maintained by local pressure gradient between surrounding and interstitial flows as well as by dissipative inter-grain collisions. The existence of stable clusters introduce a more non-equilibrium momentum distribution in the overall payload, exhibiting as a form of clustering instability. Under the current assumptions of non-deformable grains, the mesoscale granular dynamics largely depends on the payload morphology as a result of packing methods. Different payload morphologies can develop varied sliding and colliding lines, which lead to a corresponding pattern for payload fracturing and particle clustering. With the rapid development of high-performance computing technology, future direct simulations on stochastic payloads with significantly increased domain sizes, number of particles, and solution times are expected to lead to a better understanding of the flow instability in explosively dispersed granular payloads. It is suggested that statistics collected from a large number of mesoscale computations based on random payload morphologies can potentially evolve into a macroscopic theory of multiphase flow instability for particle clustering and jetting phenomena widely observed in many areas involving dense gas-solid flows

GiD 2008. 4th Conference on advances and applications of GiD

The extended use of simulation programs has leaned on the advances in user-friendly interfaces and in the capability to generate meshes for any generic complex geometry. More than ten years of development have made Gid grow to become one of the more popular pre ans postprocessing systems at international level. The constant dialogue between the GiD development team and the users has guided the development of giD to cover the pre-post needs of many disciplines in science and engineering. Following gthis philosophy, the biannual GiD Conference has become an important forum for discussion and interchange of experiences among the GiD community. This monograph includes the contributions of the participants to the fourth edition of the GiD Conference held in the island of Ibiza from 8-9 May 2008

The study of blood flow in human arterial bifurcations by the combination of CFD and MRI

Atherosclero8is represents a major health problem in the western world. The local haemodynamics is believed to be an initiating and localizing factor in this multilactorial disease process. To fully understand this interaction it is important to obtain detailed information about the local haemodynamics in accurate models of the hnrnan vascular system. Because of the complexity of arterial geometry, in mvo velocity measurements are subject to large errors by currently available techniques. It is also difficult to construct the highly irregular arterial bifurcation model for in vitro investigations. By using a combination of two new methodologies,namely magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) and computational fluid dynamics CFD), the precise patterns of flow anticipating the onset of disease at arterial bifurcations can now, in principle, be determined. However, flow simulations based on in vzvo data directly acquired from clinical measurements have rarely been performed, due to difficulties involved in converting medical images into a data set that CFD software packages can accept. ,In this study, a computer modelling technique, which integrates dinically acquired MR angiograms, image processing and CFD, for the reconstruction of 3D blood flow patterns in realistic arterial geometry, was developed. In the procedure, human arteries are scanned non-invasively by MR angiography. With the MR angiograms, image processing and 3D reconstruction are performed and structured numerical grid is generated for the arteries scanned. Together with MR in tnvo measured velocity profiles at the boundary planes of the model, CFD simulations are undertaken. To test the capability and reliability of the whole procedure, two examples are given, of the human abdominal and right carotid bifurcations. The complete haemodynamic patterns obtained allow a full clinical understanding to be gained of individual patient behaviour. Aspects such as wall shear stress variation, secondary flow and flow separations are demonstrated. The problem of quantitative reliability of the predictions is discussed in some depth

An immersed computational framework for multiphase fluid-structure interaction.

"The objective of this thesis is to further extend the application range of immersed computational approaches in the context of hydrodynamics and present a novel general framework for the simulation of fluid-structure interaction problems involving rigid bodies, flexible solids and multiphase flows. The proposed method aims to overcome shortcomings such as the restriction of having to deal with similar density ratios among different phases or the restriction to solve single-phase flows. The new framework will be capable of coping with large density ratios, multiphase flows and will be focussed on hydrodynamic problems. The two main challenges to be addressed are: - the representation, evolution and compatibility of the multiple fluid-solid interface - the proposition of unified framework containing multiphase flows, flexible structures and rigid bodies with possibly large density ratios First, a new variation of the original IBM is presented by rearranging the governing equations which define the behaviour of the multiple physics involved. The formulation is compatibile with the "one-fluid" equation for two phase flows and can deal with large density ratios with the help of an anisotropic Poisson solver. Second, deformable structures and fluid are modelled in a identical manner except for the deviatoric part of the Cauchy stress tensor. The challenging part is the calculation of the deviatoric part the Cauchy stress in the structure, which is expressed as a function of the deformation gradient tensor. The technique followed In this thesis is that original ISP, but re-expressed in terms of the Cauchy stress tensor. Any immersed rigid body is considered as an incompressible non-viscous continuum body with an equivalent internal force field which constrains the velocity field to satisfy the rigid body motion condition. The "rigid body" spatial velocity is evaluated by means of a linear least squares projection of the background fluid velocity, whilst the immersed force field emerges as a result of the linear momentum conversation equation. This formulation is convenient for arbitrary rigid shapes around a fixed point and the most general translation- rotation. A characteristic or indicator function, defined for each interacting continuum phase, evolves passively with the velocity field. Generally, there are two families of algorithms for the description of the interfaces, namely, Eulerian grid based methods (interface tracking). In this thesis, the interface capturing Level Set method is used to capture the fluid-fluid interface, due to its advantages to deal with possible topological changes. In addiction, an interface tracking Lagrangian based meshless technique is used for the fluid-structure interface due to its benefits at the ensuring mass preservation. From the fluid discretisation point of view, the discretisation is based on the standard Marker-and-Cell method in conjunction with a fractional step approach for the pressure/velocity decoupling. The thesis presents a wide range of applications for multiphase flows interacting with a variety of structures (i.e. rigid and deformable) Several numerical examples are presented in order to demonstrate the robustness and applicability of the new methodology. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

A Biomimetic, Energy-Harvesting, Obstacle-Avoiding, Path-Planning Algorithm for UAVs

This dissertation presents two new approaches to energy harvesting for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). One method is based on the Potential Flow Method (PFM); the other method seeds a wind-field map based on updraft peak analysis and then applies a variant of the Bellman-Ford algorithm to find the minimum-cost path. Both methods are enhanced by taking into account the performance characteristics of the aircraft using advanced performance theory. The combined approach yields five possible trajectories from which the one with the minimum energy cost is selected. The dissertation concludes by using the developed theory and modeling tools to simulate the flight paths of two small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAV) in the 500 kg and 250 kg class. The results show that, in mountainous regions, substantial energy can be recovered, depending on topography and wind characteristics. For the examples presented, as much as 50% of the energy was recovered for a complex, multi-heading, multi-altitude, 170 km mission in an average wind speed of 9 m/s. The algorithms constitute a Generic Intelligent Control Algorithm (GICA) for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles that enables an extraction of atmospheric energy while completing a mission trajectory. At the same time, the algorithm automatically adjusts the flight path in order to avoid obstacles, in a fashion not unlike what one would expect from living organisms, such as birds and insects. This multi-disciplinary approach renders the approach biomimetic, i.e. it constitutes a synthetic system that “mimics the formation and function of biological mechanisms and processes.

Enabling the Development and Implementation of Digital Twins : Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

Welcome to the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2020). This year we are meeting on-line due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The overarching theme for CONVR2020 is "Enabling the development and implementation of Digital Twins". CONVR is one of the world-leading conferences in the areas of virtual reality, augmented reality and building information modelling. Each year, more than 100 participants from all around the globe meet to discuss and exchange the latest developments and applications of virtual technologies in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry (AECO). The conference is also known for having a unique blend of participants from both academia and industry. This year, with all the difficulties of replicating a real face to face meetings, we are carefully planning the conference to ensure that all participants have a perfect experience. We have a group of leading keynote speakers from industry and academia who are covering up to date hot topics and are enthusiastic and keen to share their knowledge with you. CONVR participants are very loyal to the conference and have attended most of the editions over the last eighteen editions. This year we are welcoming numerous first timers and we aim to help them make the most of the conference by introducing them to other participants