A numerical method for junctions in networks of shallow-water channels

There is growing interest in developing mathematical models and appropriate numerical methods for problems involving networks formed by, essentially, one-dimensional (1D) domains joined by junctions. Examples include hyperbolic equations in networks of gas tubes, water channels and vessel networks for blood and lymph in the human circulatory system. A key point in designing numerical methods for such applications is the treatment of junctions, i.e. points at which two or more 1D domains converge and where the flow exhibits multidimensional behaviour. This paper focuses on the design of methods for networks of water channels. Our methods adopt the finite volume approach to make full use of the two-dimensional shallow water equations on the true physical domain, locally at junctions, while solving the usual one-dimensional shallow water equations away from the junctions. In addition to mass conservation, our methods enforce conservation of momentum at junctions; the latter seems to be the missing element in methods currently available. Apart from simplicity and robustness, the salient feature of the proposed methods is their ability to successfully deal with transcritical and supercritical flows at junctions, a property not enjoyed by existing published methodologies. Systematic assessment of the proposed methods for a variety of flow configurations is carried out. The methods are directly applicable to other systems, provided the multidimensional versions of the 1D equations are available

Preliminary design studies of an advanced general aviation aircraft

The preliminary design results are presented of the advanced aircraft design project. The goal was to take a revolutionary look into the design of a general aviation aircraft. Phase 1 of the project included the preliminary design of two configurations, a pusher, and a tractor. Phase 2 included the selection of only one configuration for further study. The pusher configuration was selected on the basis of performance characteristics, cabin noise, natural laminar flow, and system layouts. The design was then iterated to achieve higher levels of performance

Heterogeneity effects on flow and transport within a shallow fluvial aquifer

The effects of aquifer heterogeneity on flow and transport are considered numerically at two scales using high resolution groundwater models. Heterogeneity effects on river loss were evaluated at the kilometer scale using stochastic, geostatistical models with grid cells on the order of several meters. It was found that river loss decreased directly with an increase in the extent of heterogeneity and that homogeneous approximations resulted in increased loss estimates. Heterogeneity effects on transport were simulated at the scale of several meters using a homogeneous approximation, traditional geostatistical models and a new integrated method of aquifer characterization. The integrated method combines geophysics and geostatistics to create a more realistic approximation of subsurface features. Using grid cells of several centimeters, transport was simulated for multiple heterogeneity realizations in three directions through the models to evaluate potential anisotropy of the transport rates. The resulting breakthrough curves for the homogeneous and traditional geostatistical models showed no directional anisotropy but the integrated models showed anisotropic behavior consistent with the bedding direction as well as non-Fickian transport rates

A time-predictable many-core processor design for critical real-time embedded systems

Critical Real-Time Embedded Systems (CRTES) are in charge of controlling fundamental parts of embedded system, e.g. energy harvesting solar panels in satellites, steering and breaking in cars, or flight management systems in airplanes. To do so, CRTES require strong evidence of correct functional and timing behavior. The former guarantees that the system operates correctly in response of its inputs; the latter ensures that its operations are performed within a predefined time budget. CRTES aim at increasing the number and complexity of functions. Examples include the incorporation of \smarter" Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functionality in modern cars or advanced collision avoidance systems in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). All these new features, implemented in software, lead to an exponential growth in both performance requirements and software development complexity. Furthermore, there is a strong need to integrate multiple functions into the same computing platform to reduce the number of processing units, mass and space requirements, etc. Overall, there is a clear need to increase the computing power of current CRTES in order to support new sophisticated and complex functionality, and integrate multiple systems into a single platform. The use of multi- and many-core processor architectures is increasingly seen in the CRTES industry as the solution to cope with the performance demand and cost constraints of future CRTES. Many-cores supply higher performance by exploiting the parallelism of applications while providing a better performance per watt as cores are maintained simpler with respect to complex single-core processors. Moreover, the parallelization capabilities allow scheduling multiple functions into the same processor, maximizing the hardware utilization. However, the use of multi- and many-cores in CRTES also brings a number of challenges related to provide evidence about the correct operation of the system, especially in the timing domain. Hence, despite the advantages of many-cores and the fact that they are nowadays a reality in the embedded domain (e.g. Kalray MPPA, Freescale NXP P4080, TI Keystone II), their use in CRTES still requires finding efficient ways of providing reliable evidence about the correct operation of the system. This thesis investigates the use of many-core processors in CRTES as a means to satisfy performance demands of future complex applications while providing the necessary timing guarantees. To do so, this thesis contributes to advance the state-of-the-art towards the exploitation of parallel capabilities of many-cores in CRTES contributing in two different computing domains. From the hardware domain, this thesis proposes new many-core designs that enable deriving reliable and tight timing guarantees. From the software domain, we present efficient scheduling and timing analysis techniques to exploit the parallelization capabilities of many-core architectures and to derive tight and trustworthy Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) estimates of CRTES.Los sistemas críticos empotrados de tiempo real (en ingles Critical Real-Time Embedded Systems, CRTES) se encargan de controlar partes fundamentales de los sistemas integrados, e.g. obtención de la energía de los paneles solares en satélites, la dirección y frenado en automóviles, o el control de vuelo en aviones. Para hacerlo, CRTES requieren fuerte evidencias del correcto comportamiento funcional y temporal. El primero garantiza que el sistema funciona correctamente en respuesta de sus entradas; el último asegura que sus operaciones se realizan dentro de unos limites temporales establecidos previamente. El objetivo de los CRTES es aumentar el número y la complejidad de las funciones. Algunos ejemplos incluyen los sistemas inteligentes de asistencia a la conducción en automóviles modernos o los sistemas avanzados de prevención de colisiones en vehiculos aereos no tripulados. Todas estas nuevas características, implementadas en software,conducen a un crecimiento exponencial tanto en los requerimientos de rendimiento como en la complejidad de desarrollo de software. Además, existe una gran necesidad de integrar múltiples funciones en una sóla plataforma para así reducir el número de unidades de procesamiento, cumplir con requisitos de peso y espacio, etc. En general, hay una clara necesidad de aumentar la potencia de cómputo de los actuales CRTES para soportar nueva funcionalidades sofisticadas y complejas e integrar múltiples sistemas en una sola plataforma. El uso de arquitecturas multi- y many-core se ve cada vez más en la industria CRTES como la solución para hacer frente a la demanda de mayor rendimiento y las limitaciones de costes de los futuros CRTES. Las arquitecturas many-core proporcionan un mayor rendimiento explotando el paralelismo de aplicaciones al tiempo que proporciona un mejor rendimiento por vatio ya que los cores se mantienen más simples con respecto a complejos procesadores de un solo core. Además, las capacidades de paralelización permiten programar múltiples funciones en el mismo procesador, maximizando la utilización del hardware. Sin embargo, el uso de multi- y many-core en CRTES también acarrea ciertos desafíos relacionados con la aportación de evidencias sobre el correcto funcionamiento del sistema, especialmente en el ámbito temporal. Por eso, a pesar de las ventajas de los procesadores many-core y del hecho de que éstos son una realidad en los sitemas integrados (por ejemplo Kalray MPPA, Freescale NXP P4080, TI Keystone II), su uso en CRTES aún precisa de la búsqueda de métodos eficientes para proveer evidencias fiables sobre el correcto funcionamiento del sistema. Esta tesis ahonda en el uso de procesadores many-core en CRTES como un medio para satisfacer los requisitos de rendimiento de aplicaciones complejas mientras proveen las garantías de tiempo necesarias. Para ello, esta tesis contribuye en el avance del estado del arte hacia la explotación de many-cores en CRTES en dos ámbitos de la computación. En el ámbito del hardware, esta tesis propone nuevos diseños many-core que posibilitan garantías de tiempo fiables y precisas. En el ámbito del software, la tesis presenta técnicas eficientes para la planificación de tareas y el análisis de tiempo para aprovechar las capacidades de paralelización en arquitecturas many-core, y también para derivar estimaciones de peor tiempo de ejecución (Worst-Case Execution Time, WCET) fiables y precisas

A Numerical Simulation of the Shallow Water Flow on a Complex Topography

In current chapter, we have thoroughly described a numerical integration scheme of nonstationary 2D equations of shallow water. The scheme combines the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) and the total variation diminishing (TVD) methods, which are sequentially used at various steps of the combined SPH-TVD algorithm. The method is conservative and well balanced. It provides stable through calculations in presence of nonstationary “water-dry bottom” boundaries on complex irregular bottom topography including the transition of such a boundary between wet and dry bottom through the computational boundary. Multifarious tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the combined SPH-TVD scheme application for a solution of diverse problems of the engineering hydrology

Design of an energy-efficient geographic routing protocol for mobile ad-hoc networks

Mobile Ad-hoc networks extend communications beyond the limit of infrastructure based networks. Future wireless applications will take advantage of rapidly deployable, self-configuring multi-hop mobile Ad-hoc networks. In order to provide robust performance in mobile Ad-hoc networks and hence cope with dynamic path loss conditions, it is apparent that research and development of energy efficient geographic routing protocols is of great importance. Therefore various mobile Ad-hoc routing protocols have been studied for their different approaches. Forwarding strategies for geographic routing protocols are discussed and there is a particular focus on the pass loss model used by those routing protocols, the restriction and disadvantage of using such path loss model is then discussed. A novel geographic routing protocol which incorporates both the link quality and relay node location information has been developed to determine an energy efficient route from source to destination. The concepts of a gain region and a relay region to minimize the energy consumption have been proposed to define the area in where the candidate relay nodes will be selected with the minimized hop count. The signalling overhead required by the protocol has been analyzed in various scenarios with different traffic load, node densities and network sizes. Discrete event simulation models are therefore developed to capture the behaviour and characteristics of the operation of the developed routing protocol under different path loss conditions and network scenarios. A non-free space path loss model has been developed with a random loss between the nodes to simulate a realistic path loss scenario in the network. An enhanced signalling process has been designed in order to achieve advanced routing information exchange and assist routing determination. Comparison of simulated characteristics demonstrates the significant improvement of the new routing protocol because of its novel features, the gain region to ensure the deductiono f the energyc onsumptiont,h e relay region to ensuret he forward progress to the destination and hence maintain an optimised hop count. The simulation results showed that the energy consumption under the operation of the developed protocol is 30% of that with a conventionagl eographicarl outing protocol

Mixed-convection heat transfer in vertical channels with arbitrary wall conditions

Imperial Users onl