Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationVisualizing surfaces is a fundamental technique in computer science and is frequently used across a wide range of fields such as computer graphics, biology, engineering, and scientific visualization. In many cases, visualizing an interface between boundaries can provide meaningful analysis or simplification of complex data. Some examples include physical simulation for animation, multimaterial mesh extraction in biophysiology, flow on airfoils in aeronautics, and integral surfaces. However, the quest for high-quality visualization, coupled with increasingly complex data, comes with a high computational cost. Therefore, new techniques are needed to solve surface visualization problems within a reasonable amount of time while also providing sophisticated visuals that are meaningful to scientists and engineers. In this dissertation, novel techniques are presented to facilitate surface visualization. First, a particle system for mesh extraction is parallelized on the graphics processing unit (GPU) with a red-black update scheme to achieve an order of magnitude speed-up over a central processing unit (CPU) implementation. Next, extending the red-black technique to multiple materials showed inefficiencies on the GPU. Therefore, we borrow the underlying data structure from the closest point method, the closest point embedding, and the particle system solver is switched to hierarchical octree-based approach on the GPU. Third, to demonstrate that the closest point embedding is a fast, flexible data structure for surface particles, it is adapted to unsteady surface flow visualization at near-interactive speeds. Finally, the closest point embedding is a three-dimensional dense structure that does not scale well. Therefore, we introduce a closest point sparse octree that allows the closest point embedding to scale to higher resolution. Further, we demonstrate unsteady line integral convolution using the closest point method

Large Scale GPU Based Simulations of Turbulent Bubbly Flow in a Square Duct

In this paper, we present the results of a numerical study of air-water turbulent bubbly flow in a periodic vertical square duct. The study is conducted using a novel numerical technique which leverages Volume of Fluid method for interface capturing and Sharp Surface Force method for accurate representation of the surface tension forces. A three-dimensional geometry construction method is employed during solution of interface equation which gives absolute conservation of mass and sharp interface between gas and liquid phases. The entire algorithm has been implemented on a data parallel mode on multiple graphics processing units (GPU) taking advantage of the large number of available cores. We have studied the dynamics of a swarm of spherical bubbles co-flowing with the upward turbulent flow and compared results with an unladen turbulent flow. The frictional Reynolds number of the unladen $Re_{\tau}$ is 360, which is sufficient to sustain a turbulent flow. We observe the turbulence-driven secondary flows in the mean flow, with complex instantaneous turbulent vortical structures. The interaction of these secondary flows with the upwards rising bubbles is very complex and leads to significant changes in the instantaneous and time-averaged flow field. We present the results of mean void fraction distribution, mean velocities, longitudinal and transverse turbulence intensities along the wall, corner bisector, and wall bisector. A peak in the void fraction distribution near the walls is observed representing the migration of bubbles to a preferred section of the duct. The effects of turbulence-driven secondary flows and instantaneous large eddies on preferential concentration of the bubbles are discussed. The dispersed bubbles are seen to break the long elongated turbulent structures commonly observed in the unladen turbulent flow

Mesoscopic simulation study of wall roughness effects in micro-channel flows of dense emulsions

We study the Poiseuille flow of a soft-glassy material above the jamming point, where the material flows like a complex fluid with Herschel- Bulkley rheology. Microscopic plastic rearrangements and the emergence of their spatial correlations induce cooperativity flow behavior whose effect is pronounced in presence of confinement. With the help of lattice Boltzmann numerical simulations of confined dense emulsions, we explore the role of geometrical roughness in providing activation of plastic events close to the boundaries. We probe also the spatial configuration of the fluidity field, a continuum quantity which can be related to the rate of plastic events, thereby allowing us to establish a link between the mesoscopic plastic dynamics of the jammed material and the macroscopic flow behaviour

Efficient algorithms for the realistic simulation of fluids

Nowadays there is great demand for realistic simulations in the computer graphics field. Physically-based animations are commonly used, and one of the more complex problems in this field is fluid simulation, more so if real-time applications are the goal. Videogames, in particular, resort to different techniques that, in order to represent fluids, just simulate the consequence and not the cause, using procedural or parametric methods and often discriminating the physical solution. This need motivates the present thesis, the interactive simulation of free-surface flows, usually liquids, which are the feature of interest in most common applications. Due to the complexity of fluid simulation, in order to achieve real-time framerates, we have resorted to use the high parallelism provided by actual consumer-level GPUs. The simulation algorithm, the Lattice Boltzmann Method, has been chosen accordingly due to its efficiency and the direct mapping to the hardware architecture because of its local operations. We have created two free-surface simulations in the GPU: one fully in 3D and another restricted only to the upper surface of a big bulk of fluid, limiting the simulation domain to 2D. We have extended the latter to track dry regions and is also coupled with obstacles in a geometry-independent fashion. As it is restricted to 2D, the simulation loses some features due to the impossibility of simulating vertical separation of the fluid. To account for this we have coupled the surface simulation to a generic particle system with breaking wave conditions; the simulations are totally independent and only the coupling binds the LBM with the chosen particle system. Furthermore, the visualization of both systems is also done in a realistic way within the interactive framerates; raycasting techniques are used to provide the expected light-related effects as refractions, reflections and caustics. Other techniques that improve the overall detail are also applied as low-level detail ripples and surface foam

Electron Beam X-Ray Computed Tomography for Multiphase Flows and An Experimental Study of Inter-channel Mixing

This thesis consists of two parts. In the first, a high speed X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) system for multiphase flows is developed. X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) has been employed in the study of multiphase flows. The systems developed to date often have excellent spatial resolution at the expense of poor temporal resolution. Hence, X-ray CT has mostly been employed to examining time averaged phase distributions. In the present work, we report on the development of a Scanning Electron Beam X-ray Tomography (SEBXT) CT system that will allow for much higher time resolution with acceptable spatial resolution. The designed system, however, can have issues such as beam-hardening and limited angle artifacts. In the present study, we developed a high speed, limited angle SEBXT system along with a new CT reconstruction algorithm designed to enhance the CT reconstruction results of such system. To test the performance of the CT system, we produced example CT reconstruction results for two test phantoms based on the actual measured sinograms and the simulated sinograms. The second part examines, the process by which fluid mixes between two parallel flow channels through a narrow gap. This flow is a canonical representation of the mixing and mass transfer processes that often occur in thermo-hydraulic systems. The mixing can be strongly related to the presence of large-scale periodic flow structures that form within the gap. In the present work, we have developed an experimental setup to examine the single-phase mixing through the narrow rectangular gaps connecting two rectangular channels. Our goal is to elucidate the underlying flow processes responsible for inter-channel mixing, and to produce high-fidelity data for validation of computational models. Dye concentration measurements were used to determine the time average rate of mixing. Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the flow fields within the gap. A Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) of the PIV flow fields revealed the presence of coherent flow structure. The decomposed flow fields were then used to predict the time averaged mixing, which closely matched the experimentally measured values.PHDNaval Architecture & Marine EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138666/1/seongjin_2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138666/2/seongjin_1.pd