A Thermo-elastic Analogy for High-order Curvilinear Meshing with Control of Mesh Validity and Quality

This is the final version of the article. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.In recent years, techniques for the generation of high-order curvilinear mesh have frequently adopted mesh deformation procedures to project the curvature of the surface onto the mesh, thereby introducing curvature into the interior of the domain and lessening the occurrence of self-intersecting elements. In this article, we propose an extension of this approach whereby thermal stress terms are incorporated into the state equation to provide control on the validity and quality of the mesh, thereby adding an extra degree of robustness which is lacking in current approaches

An isoparametric approach to high-order curvilinear boundary-layer meshing

This is the final version of the article. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.The generation of high-order curvilinear meshes for complex three-dimensional geometries is presently a challenging topic, particularly for meshes used in simulations at high Reynolds numbers where a thin boundary layer exists near walls and elements are highly stretched in the direction normal to flow. In this paper, we present a conceptually simple but very effective and modular method to address this issue. We propose an isoparametric approach, whereby a mesh containing a valid coarse discretization comprising of high-order triangular prisms near walls is refined to obtain a finer prismatic or tetrahedral boundary-layer mesh. The validity of the prismatic mesh provides a suitable mapping that allows one to obtain very fine mesh resolutions across the thickness of the boundary layer. We describe the method in detail for a high-order approximation using modal basis functions, discuss the requirements for the splitting method to produce valid prismatic and tetrahedral meshes and provide a sufficient criterion of validity in both cases. By considering two complex aeronautical configurations, we demonstrate how highly stretched meshes with sufficient resolution within the laminar sublayer can be generated to enable the simulation of flows with Reynolds numbers of 106 and above.This work was partly supported by EU Grant No. 265780 as part of the EU FP7 project “IDIHOM: Industrialization of High-Order Methods — A Top-Down Approach”. We would like to thank Dr. Tobias Leicht of DLR for asking a very pertinent question concerning the validity of the generated high-order mesh that we believe to have answered in this article. We also thank Jean-Eloi Lombard for his assistance in generating the mesh for Fig. 15

Automatic generation of 3D unstructured high-order curvilinear meshes

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The generation of suitable, good quality high-order meshes is a significant obstacle in the academic and industrial uptake of high-order CFD methods. These methods have a number of favourable characteristics such as low dispersion and dissipation and higher levels of numerical accuracy than their low-order counterparts, however the methods are highly susceptible to inaccuracies caused by low quality meshes. These meshes require significant curvature to accuratly describe the geometric surfaces, which presents a number of difficult challenges in their generation. As yet, research into the field has produced a number of interesting technologies that go some way towards achieving this goal, but are yet to provide a complete system that can systematically produce curved high-order meshes for arbitrary geometries for CFD analysis. This paper presents our efforts in that direction and introduces an open-source high-order mesh generator, NekMesh, which has been created to bring high-order meshing technologies into one coherent pipeline which aims to produce 3D high-order curvilinear meshes from CAD geometries in a robust and systematic way

A Thermo-elastic Analogy for High-order Curvilinear Meshing with Control of Mesh Validity and Quality

AbstractIn recent years, techniques for the generation of high-order curvilinear mesh have frequently adopted mesh deformation procedures to project the curvature of the surface onto the mesh, thereby introducing curvature into the interior of the domain and lessening the occurrence of self-intersecting elements. In this article, we propose an extension of this approach whereby thermal stress terms are incorporated into the state equation to provide control on the validity and quality of the mesh, thereby adding an extra degree of robustness which is lacking in current approaches

Efficient vectorised Cuda kernels for high-order finite element flow solvers

In this work, we develop efficient kernels for elemental operators of matrix-free solvers of the Helmholtz equation, which are the core operations for more complete Navier-Stokes solvers. We consider straight-sided and deformed quadrilateral elements from unstructured high-order meshes. We investigate two types of efficient CUDA kernels for a range of polynomial orders; a first type which maps each elemental operation to a CUDA-thread, and a second that maps each element to a CUDA-block. Our results show that the first option is beneficial for small elements with low polynomial order, whereas the second option is beneficial for larger elements. For both options we show the importance of the right layout of data structures, and analyse the effect of utilising different memory spaces on the GPU

Monocular slam for deformable scenarios.

El problema de localizar la posición de un sensor en un mapa incierto que se estima simultáneamente se conoce como Localización y Mapeo Simultáneo --SLAM--. Es un problema desafiante comparable al paradigma del huevo y la gallina. Para ubicar el sensor necesitamos conocer el mapa, pero para construir el mapa, necesitamos la posición del sensor. Cuando se utiliza un sensor visual, por ejemplo, una cámara, se denomina Visual SLAM o VSLAM. Los sensores visuales para SLAM se dividen entre los que proporcionan información de profundidad (por ejemplo, cámaras RGB-D o equipos estéreo) y los que no (por ejemplo, cámaras monoculares o cámaras de eventos). En esta tesis hemos centrado nuestra investigación en SLAM con cámaras monoculares.Debido a la falta de percepción de profundidad, el SLAM monocular es intrínsecamente más duro en comparación con el SLAM con sensores de profundidad. Los trabajos estado del arte en VSLAM monocular han asumido normalmente que la escena permanece rígida durante toda la secuencia, lo que es una suposición factible para entornos industriales y urbanos. El supuesto de rigidez aporta las restricciones suficientes al problema y permite reconstruir un mapa fiable tras procesar varias imágenes. En los últimos años, el interés por el SLAM ha llegado a las áreas médicas donde los algoritmos SLAM podrían ayudar a orientar al cirujano o localizar la posición de un robot. Sin embargo, a diferencia de los escenarios industriales o urbanos, en secuencias dentro del cuerpo, todo puede deformarse eventualmente y la suposición de rigidez acaba siendo inválida en la práctica, y por extensión, también los algoritmos de SLAM monoculares. Por lo tanto, nuestro objetivo es ampliar los límites de los algoritmos de SLAM y concebir el primer sistema SLAM monocular capaz de hacer frente a la deformación de la escena.Los sistemas de SLAM actuales calculan la posición de la cámara y la estructura del mapa en dos subprocesos concurrentes: la localización y el mapeo. La localización se encarga de procesar cada imagen para ubicar el sensor de forma continua, en cambio el mapeo se encarga de construir el mapa de la escena. Nosotros hemos adoptado esta estructura y concebimos tanto la localización deformable como el mapeo deformable ahora capaces de recuperar la escena incluso con deformación.Nuestra primera contribución es la localización deformable. La localización deformable utiliza la estructura del mapa para recuperar la pose de la cámara con una única imagen. Simultáneamente, a medida que el mapa se deforma durante la secuencia, también recupera la deformación del mapa para cada fotograma. Hemos propuesto dos familias de localización deformable. En el primer algoritmo de localización deformable, asumimos que todos los puntos están embebidos en una superficie denominada plantilla. Podemos recuperar la deformación de la superficie gracias a un modelo de deformación global que permite estimar la deformación más probable del objeto. Con nuestro segundo algoritmo de localización deformable, demostramos que es posible recuperar la deformación del mapa sin un modelo de deformación global, representando el mapa como surfels individuales. Nuestros resultados experimentales mostraron que, recuperando la deformación del mapa, ambos métodos superan tanto en robustez como en precisión a los métodos rígidos.Nuestra segunda contribución es la concepción del mapeo deformable. Es el back-end del algoritmo SLAM y procesa un lote de imágenes para recuperar la estructura del mapa para todas las imágenes y hacer crecer el mapa ensamblando las observaciones parciales del mismo. Tanto la localización deformable como el mapeo que se ejecutan en paralelo y juntos ensamblan el primer SLAM monocular deformable: \emph{DefSLAM}. Una evaluación ampliada de nuestro método demostró, tanto en secuencias controladas por laboratorio como en secuencias médicas, que nuestro método procesa con éxito secuencias en las que falla el sistema monocular SLAM actual.Nuestra tercera contribución son dos métodos para explotar la información fotométrica en SLAM monocular deformable. Por un lado, SD-DefSLAM que aprovecha el emparejamiento semi-directo para obtener un emparejamiento mucho más fiable de los puntos del mapa en las nuevas imágenes, como consecuencia, se demostró que es más robusto y estable en secuencias médicas. Por otro lado, proponemos un método de Localización Deformable Directa y Dispersa en el que usamos un error fotométrico directo para rastrear la deformación de un mapa modelado como un conjunto de surfels 3D desconectados. Podemos recuperar la deformación de múltiples superficies desconectadas, deformaciones no isométricas o superficies con una topología cambiante.<br /

Professionalization of Sport Educators in European Prisons

Actualmente, las actividades físicas y deportivas forman parte del paisaje de las prisiones y se les adjudica un papel (re)educativo. Sin embargo, se desconoce cómo se desarrollan dichas actividades y la profesionalización del personal encargado de las mismas. En este estudio se administró un cuestionario a 341 profesionales de prisiones, ubicadas en cinco países europeos, con el objetivo de indagar en el rol que juega la formación especializada en deportes y el diseño instruccional en la profesionalización de estos educadores. Los resultados indican que la formación deportiva especializada es mayor en los profesionales con menos años de experiencia y, especialmente, en aquellos con estudios superiores. Un gran porcentaje de los educadores planifican los principales elementos del diseño instruccional, aunque la mitad aún mantiene los objetivos en mente. Utilizan principalmente la estrategia metodológica de instrucción directa y formas verbales de evaluación. Se concluye que los educadores noveles con mayor nivel de estudios muestran mayor grado de profesionalizaciónSport is nowadays part of the prison landscape and it receives a (re)educational role. Nevertheless, it is unknown how are they developed and the professionalization features of the staff in charge of these activities. Therefore, a sample of 341 professionals from prisons located in five European countries responded to a survey conducted to explore the role that specialized sportive training and instructional design play in the professionalization of sport educators. The results indicate that the specialized sports training is higher among professionals with less years of experience and, especially, among those with higher-university studies. Larger percentage of educators plan the main elements of design, however, half of them still kept in mind the objectives. They mainly use direct instruction methodological strategies and oral forms of assessment. The paper concludes that those educators with less years of experience and more level of education show higher degree of professionalizationEste artículo deriva del proyecto "Prisoners on the move. Move into sport, move through sport", que fue financiado por la Unión Europea (EAC/22/2010). Los miembros del equipo de investigación pertenecen a De Rode Antraciet de Bélgica (Coordinador del proyecto), Kriminal Forsorgen de Dinamarca, Sport et Citoyenneté de Francia, CRED de Rumania, Sport for Solidarity del Reino Unido y la Universitat de València de España. El estudio del cual deriva este artículo lo diseñaron y desarrollaron los autores de este trabajo

Strain-driven elastic and orbital-ordering effects on thickness-dependent properties of manganite thin films

We report on the structural and magnetic characterization of (110) and (001) La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 (LCMO) epitaxial thin films simultaneously grown on (110) and (001)SrTiO3 substrates, with thicknesses t varying between 8 nm and 150 nm. It is found that while the in-plane interplanar distances of the (001) films are strongly clamped to those of the substrate and the films remain strained up to well above t=100 nm, the (110) films relax much earlier. Accurate determination of the in-plane and out-of-plane interplanar distances has allowed concluding that in all cases the unit cell volume of the manganite reduces gradually when increasing thickness, approaching the bulk value. It is observed that the magnetic properties (Curie temperature and saturation magnetization) of the (110) films are significantly improved compared to those of (001) films. These observations, combined with 55Mn-nuclear magnetic resonance data and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, signal that the depression of the magnetic properties of the more strained (001)LCMO films is not caused by an elastic deformation of the perovskite lattice but rather due to the electronic and chemical phase separation caused by the substrate-induced strain. On the contrary, the thickness dependence of the magnetic properties of the less strained (110)LCMO films are simply described by the elastic deformation of the manganite lattice. We will argue that the different behavior of (001) and (110)LCMO films is a consequence of the dissimilar electronic structure of these interfaces.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure

Modelling the Mechanical Behaviour of a Pharmaceutical Tablet Using PDEs.

yesDetailed design of pharmaceutical tablets is essential nowadays in order to produce robust tablets with tailor-made properties. Compressibility and compactibility are the main compaction properties involved in the design and development of solid dosage forms. The data obtained from measured forces and displacements of the punch are normally analysed using the Heckel model to assess the mechanical behaviour of pharmaceutical powders. In this paper, we present a technique for shape modelling of pharmaceutical tablets based on the PDE method. We extended the formulation of the PDE method to a higher dimensional space in order to generate a solid tablet and a cuboid mesh is created to represent the tablet¿s components. We also modelled the displacement components of a compressed PDE- based representation of a tablet by utilising the solution of the axisymmetric boundary value problem for a finite cylinder subject to a uniform axial load. The experimental data and the results obtained from the developed model are shown in Heckel plots and a good agreement is found between both.Available in full text since 5th Feb 2013 following the publisher's embargo period

Optimisation of doped microcrystalline silicon films deposited at very low temperatures by Hot-Wire CVD

In this paper we present new results on doped μc-Si:H thin films deposited by hot-wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD) in the very low temperature range (125-275°C). The doped layers were obtained by the addition of diborane or phosphine in the gas phase during deposition. The incorporation of boron and phosphorus in the films and their influence on the crystalline fraction are studied by secondary ion mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. Good electrical transport properties were obtained in this deposition regime, with best dark conductivities of 2.6 and 9.8 S cm -1 for the p- and n-doped films, respectively. The effect of the hydrogen dilution and the layer thickness on the electrical properties are also studied. Some technological conclusions referred to cross contamination could be deduced from the nominally undoped samples obtained in the same chamber after p- and n-type heavily doped layers