Unsteady flow simulation of the Ahmed reference body using a lattice Boltzmann approach

The Ahmed reference body represents a simplified car geometry that can be used to investigate the main flow features in the wake of vehicles. The present work presents unsteady flow simulations at the rear slant angles 25° and 35° using the PowerFLOW 4.0 D3Q19 lattice Boltzmann model. The flow of the wake is discussed and distributions of averaged pressure and velocities are compared with available experimental findings. The resolution requirement is investigated in terms of computational requirement and accuracy achieved. The predictive capability and the feasibility of the very large eddy simulation (VLES) approach within the lattice Boltzmann framework is demonstrated.     

脉冲耦合神经网络在车牌定位中的应用

针对冗余边缘对基于边缘统计特征的车牌定位算法存在较严重干扰的问题,提出一种基于脉冲耦合神经网络(PCNN)的车牌定位方法。在借鉴传统算法的基础上,为抑制干扰性边缘,引入简化的PCNN模型,仅对候选区进行数次PCNN迭代运算,可大幅降低运算复杂度并提高车牌定位率。对300幅车辆图像进行仿真实验,取得了98.3%的定位率。     

A Parallel Overset Grid High-Order Flow Solver for Large Eddy Simulation

This work describes the development and validation of a parallel high-order compact finite difference Navier–Stokes solver for application to large-eddy simulation (LES) and direct numerical simulation. The implicit solver can employ up to sixth-order spatial formulations and tenth-order filtering. The parallelization of the solver is founded on the overset grid technique. LES were then performed for turbulent channel flow with Reynolds numbers ranging from Re _τ=180 to 590, and flow past a circular cylinder with a transitional wake at Re _D =3900. The channel flow solutions were obtained using both an implicit LES (ILES) approach and a dynamic sub-grid scale model. The ILES method obtained virtually identical solutions at half the computational cost. The original vector and new parallel solvers produce indistinguishable mean flow solutions for the circular cylinder. Repeating the cylinder simulation on a much finer mesh resulted in significantly better agreement with experimental data in the near wake than the coarse grid solution and other previous numerical studies.     

超长并列斜拉索尾流驰振及其控制风洞试验研究

通过气动弹性模型风洞试验,测试了不同风攻角及索间距下,并列超长拉索间的风致振动特性,研究了拉索尾流驰振的运动轨迹及其控制措施.研究表明,拉索发生尾流驰振时,其运动轨迹通常为椭圆轨道,振动主轴与来流方向成一定倾角;运动方向为靠近尾流外侧时,向下游运动,靠近尾流中心时,向上游运动;尾流驰振发生时,拉索从来流中吸收能量,振幅缓慢增大;随着风速增加,振幅增加较快直至出现明显的、振动主轴近似沿来流方向的极限环为止;采用分隔架可以有效抑制尾流驰振的发生,研究结果对并列拉索的抗风设计与振动控制具有指导意义.     

Unified optical flow field approach to motion analysis from a sequence of stereo images

In this paper a new approach to motion analysis from stereo image sequences using unified temporal and spatial optical flow field (UOFF) is reported. That is, based on a four-frame rectangular model and the associated six UOFF field quantities, a set of equations is derived from which both position and velocity can be determined. It does not require feature extraction and correspondence establishment, which are known to be difficult, and only partial solutions suitable for simplistic situations have been developed. Furthermore, it is capable of detecting multiple moving objects even when partial occlusion occurs, and is potentially suitable for nonrigid motion analysis. Unlike the current existing techniques for motion analysis from stereo imagery, the recovered motion by using this new approach is for a whole continuous field instead of only for some features. It is a purely optical flow approach. Two experiments are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.     

Prediction of sound generated by a rod-airfoil configuration using EASM DES and the generalised Lighthill/FW-H analogy

Sound generated by an airfoil in the wake of a rod is predicted numerically by using a Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES) unsteady flow field and a Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy formulation for the far field computation. Volume sources from the rod wake are found to play a non-negligible role at high frequencies and surface contributions might be flawed if the surfaces cross highly turbulent flow regions even if surrounding volume terms are accounted for. The DES approach is based on a novel cubic explicit algebraic stress turbulence model which is built on a two-equation k-ε model from Lien and Lechziner. This DES has been recently implemented at the Berlin University of Technology in the compressible Navier-Stokes flow solver ELAN. The aerodynamic results are compared to experimental data obtained at the ECL by Jacob et al., as well as to previous Large Eddy Simulations results from the Proust/Turbflow code by Boudet et al. and DES simulations from Greschner et al. based on standard turbulence models. The acoustic analogy is applied both with and without volume terms to rigid and permeable control surfaces surrounding the rod-airfoil system. Aeroacoustic results are compared to experimental data from the literature, showing that the inclusion of volume terms improves the aeroacoustic prediction in the broadband high frequency range.     

Analysis of the deflection of a circular plate with an annular piezoelectric actuator

A new analytical model for predicting the deflection of a circular plate with an annular piezoelectric actuator is presented. The plate and actuator are treated as a mechanically over-constrained system and a structural mechanics approach is applied to establish the relevant equations of geometrical compatibility and static equilibrium, assuming that the interaction forces between the actuator and plate are concentrated at the edges of the actuator annulus. These equations can be solved analytically or numerically to determine the interaction forces. Analytical expressions for plate deflection in terms of the interaction forces are then presented for three sets of plate boundary conditions. The analytical results are shown to be in good agreement with finite element simulations and provide an efficient alternative to finite element analysis for design and optimization studies.     

Simplification of physical system theory in the modelling of manufacturing,organizational and other socio-economic systems

The number of variables and equations associated with the system model of any large scale system are sufficiently large. In the case of models developed using physical system theory (PST), the number of variables and equations are twice the number of edges in the system graph. The system graph represents the interactions of discrete components united at a finite number of interfaces. The PST model of any real life manufacturing, organizational or socio-economic system has a large number of edges and equations. If, somehow, the number of variables can be reduced, the PST model can be simplified, thus increasing its practicability. An approach is presented to simplify the PST models of manufacturing, organizational and other socio-economic systems that exhibit some peculiar features. For the special case of forward flow systems (which are quite common in real life) the solution procedure is simplified considerably. The proposed methodology of simplification is illustrated with the example of a multi-stage manufacturing sytem.     

Head tracking using stereo

Head tracking is an important primitive for smart environments and perceptual user interfaces where the poses and movements of body parts need to be determined. Most previous solutions to this problem are based on intensity images and, as a result, suffer from a host of problems including sensitivity to background clutter and lighting variations. Our approach avoids these pitfalls by using stereo depth data together with a simple human-torso model to create a head-tracking system that is both fast and robust. We use stereo data (Commercial equipment and materials are identified in order to adequately specify certain procedures. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the materials or equipment identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose.) to derive a depth model of the background that is then employed to provide accurate foreground segmentation. We then use directed local edge detectors on the foreground to find occluding edges that are used as features to fit to a torso model. Once we have the model parameters, the location and orientation of the head can be easily estimated. A useful side effect from using stereo data is the ability to track head movement through a room in three dimensions. Experimental results on real image sequences are given. Accepted: 13 August 2001     

Coupling of a nonlinear finite element structural method with a Navier-Stokes solver

A new three-dimensional viscous aeroelastic solver is developed in the present work. A well validated full Navier-Stokes code is coupled with a nonlinear finite element plate model. Implicit coupling between the computational fluid dynamics and structural solvers is achieved using a subiteration approach. Computations of several benchmark static and dynamic plate problems are used to validate the finite element portion of the code. This coupled aeroelastic scheme is then applied to the problem of three-dimensional panel flutter. Inviscid and viscous supersonic results match previous computations using the same aerodynamic method coupled with a finite difference structural solver. For the case of subsonic flow, multiple solutions consisting of static, upward and downward deflections of the panel are discussed. The particular solution obtained is shown to be sensitive to the cavity pressure specified underneath the panel.     

Application of the extended Kantorovich method to the bending of variable thickness plates

The governing equations of the classical plate theory for a uniform or a unidirectional variable thickness rectangular plate under transverse applied loading are solved by means of the extended Kantorovich method. The plate may be either simply supported or clamped along the edges. The solution procedure is iterative and must be carried out numerically. This necessitates the calculation of the two missing pieces of boundary data along the edges of the plate. The missing boundary data are determined utilizing the method of adjoints of the shooting method. The numerical values of the deflection and bending moments for uniform and variable thickness plates are compared with those from the exact solutions and finite element analysis, respectively.     

基于光流场与语义特征融合的心脏Cine-MRI左心室心肌分割方法

由于运动原因会造成活体心脏MRI图像中左心室心内膜与心肌边缘轮廓模糊,进而导致分割不准确以及分割精度较低,针对这些问题,本文提出一种基于光流场与语义特征融合的心脏4D Cine-MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)左心室心肌分割模型OSFNet.该模型包含了光流场计算和语义分割网络:将光流场计算得到的运动特征与图像语义特征进行融合,通过网络学习达到了最优的分割效果.模型采用编码器-解码器结构,本文提出的多感受野平均池化模块用于提取多尺度语义特征,减少了特征丢失;解码器部分使用了多路上采样方法和跳跃连接,保证了语义特征被有效还原.本文使用ACDC公开数据集对模型进行训练与测试,并分别与DenseNet和U-Net在左心室内膜分割、左心室内膜和心肌分割目标上进行对比.实验结果表明, OSFNet在Dice和HD等多个指标上取得了最佳效果.     

Numerical study on the effects of linear protrusion on flow-induced carriage excitation force in hard disk drives

The positioning accuracy of magnetic heads needs to be improved to increase the recording capacity of hard disk drives. In our previous study, experimental results confirmed that the head-positioning error could be decreased by attaching linear protrusions on the leading edge of the carriage arms. However, the mechanism underlying the phenomenon has not been elucidated. In the present research, we evaluated the effect of leading-edge protrusions on the flow-induced carriage excitation force using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and the Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT). We prepared two carriage-arm models, with and without linear protrusions, on the leading edges of the arm, and performed the CFD analyses. Subsequently, we conducted a frequency analysis by applying HHT to the simulated disturbance torque time-series of each carriage-arm model and compared the results. Our results show that the leading-edge protrusions decrease the disturbance torque due to the flow fluctuation between the arm and disk and in the wake flow, although the low-frequency disturbance torque due to the pulsatile flow can be deteriorated.

     

Closed-loop approaches to control of a wake flow modeled by the Ginzburg-Landau equation

A short computational program was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of a closed-loop control strategy for the stabilization of an unstable bluff-body flow. In this effort, the non-linear one-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau wake model at 20% above the critical Reynolds number was studied. The numerical model, which is a non-linear partial differential equation with complex coefficients, was solved using the FEMLAB^®/MATLAB^® software packages and validated by comparison with published literature. At first, a model independent approach was attempted for wake suppression using feedback control. The closed-loop system was controlled using a conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller as well as a non-linear fuzzy controller. A single sensor is used for feedback, and the actuator is represented by altering the boundary conditions of the cylinder. Simulation results indicate that for a single sensor scheme, the increase in the sophistication of the control results in significantly shorter settling times. However, there is only a marginal improvement concerning the suppression of the wake at higher Reynolds numbers. The feedback control design was then augmented by switching over to a model-dependent controller. Based on computationally generated data obtained from solving the unforced wake, a low-dimensional model of the wake was developed and evaluated. The low-dimensional model of the unforced Ginzburg-Landau equation captures more than 99.8% of the kinetic energy using just two modes. Two sensors, placed in the absolutely unstable region of the wake, are used for real-time estimation of the first two modes. The estimator was developed using the linear stochastic estimation scheme. Finally, the loop is closed using a PID controller that provides the command input to the variable boundary conditions of the model. This method is relatively simple and easy to implement in a real-time scenario. The control approach, applied to the 300 node FEMLAB^® model at 20% above the unforced critical Reynolds number stabilizes the entire wake. Compared to the model-independent controllers, the controller based on the low-dimensional model is far more effective in the suppression of the wake at higher Reynolds numbers. Furthermore, while the latter approach employs only the estimated temporal amplitude of the first mode of the imaginary part of the amplitude, all higher modes are stabilized. This suggests that the higher order modes are caused by a secondary instability that is suppressed once the primary instability is controlled.     

Computation of vortex-induced vibrations of long structures using a wake oscillator model: Comparison with DNS and experiments

We consider here the dynamics of flexible slender systems undergoing vortex-induced vibration (VIV). This type of motion results from the coupling between the oscillating wake due to cross-flow and the structure motion. Practical applications are mainly found in the field of ocean engineering, where long flexible structures such as risers or mooring cables are excited by sea currents. The wake dynamics is here represented using a distributed wake oscillator coupled to the dynamics of the slender structure, a cable or a tensioned beam. This results in two coupled partial differential equations with one variable for the solid displacement and one for the wake fluctuating lift. This simplified model of the wake dynamics has been previously validated on simple experiments. Here, comparisons with direct numerical simulation results are done for both uniform and non-uniform flow. Comparison is also performed between the wake oscillator predictions and some experimental results on long cables. The results of those comparisons show that the proposed method can be used as simple computational tool in the prediction of some aspects of vortex induced vibrations of long flexible structures.     

Recovering Relative Depth from Low-Level Features Without Explicit T-junction Detection and Interpretation

This work presents a novel computational model for relative depth order estimation from a single image based on low-level local features that encode perceptual depth cues such as convexity/concavity, inclusion, and T-junctions in a quantitative manner, considering information at different scales. These multi-scale features are based on a measure of how likely is a pixel to belong simultaneously to different objects (interpreted as connected components of level sets) and, hence, to be occluded in some of them, providing a hint on the local depth order relationships. They are directly computed on the discrete image data in an efficient manner, without requiring the detection and interpretation of edges or junctions. Its behavior is clarified and illustrated for some simple images. Then the recovery of the relative depth order on the image is achieved by global integration of these local features applying a non-linear diffusion filtering of bilateral type. The validity of the proposed features and the integration approach is demonstrated by experiments on real images and comparison with state-of-the-art monocular depth estimation techniques.     

基于图像块和边缘增强的运动目标检测

针对复杂背景下的噪声、动态背景和阴影等影响,提出一种基于图像块和边缘增强的运动目标检测算法。用图像块建模,按掩膜结构特点修补断桥使掩膜连续,采用高层图像金字塔建模得到目标质心,用于提取目标,用Sobel平移算子得到细化的边缘,按边缘信息对掩膜进行增强处理从而得到完整的目标。实验结果表明,该算法可有效提取目标,消除单高斯建模法去除不了的复杂背景和阴影,克服传统帧差法常见的边缘不完整的缺点。     

一种复杂环境下的跑道识别的新方法

针对机场在遥感图像中成像的复杂性与多样性,提出一种新的机场跑道的自动识别方法。该方法将跑道识别分为定位和识别两个步骤。首先在定位步骤中基于变形模板模型理论,建立了跑道的平行线模型及似然函数,并采用Meropolis算法确定跑道的准确边界;其次,通过分析跑道的标志特征和结构特征确立了跑道识别的通用性判别规则。通过对Spot图像的实验证明,该方法能够实现复杂环境下的跑道自动识别。     

Helicoidal vortex model for steady and unsteady flows

A helicoidal vortex model is used to predict the flow past the blades of a wind turbine. As the tip speed ratio (TSR) varies, the environment in which the blades operate varies, and for low enough TSR, the local angle of attack α will be larger than (α)_Clmax, the incidence of maximum lift. The problem becomes highly nonlinear and it is shown that adding an artificial viscosity term to the equation allows the iterative algorithm to converge toward a smooth solution that is physically acceptable.The introduction of unsteady effects is useful to understand the cyclic forces and moments due to yaw or tower interaction, both for the design of blades to account for fatigue and for power output prediction. The 2-D impulsively plunging plate problem is solved with a semi-implicit scheme and the integral and numerical solutions compared and shown to be in excellent agreement. A 2-D test case to study the convection of a periodic shedding of vorticity downstream of a blade element is analyzed using the same semi-implicit algorithm and a stretched mesh similar to that used to model a turbine vortex sheet. The scheme captures accurately the vorticity distribution in the wake. Finally, the scheme is applied to the simulation of the NREL two-bladed rotor in yaw to assess the validity of the approach.     

Vehicle license plate super-resolution using soft learning prior

This paper proposes a new algorithm to perform single-frame image super-resolution (SR) of vehicle license plate (VLP) using soft learning prior. Conventional single-frame SR/interpolation methods such as bi-cubic interpolation often experience over-smoothing near the edges and textured regions. Therefore, learning-based methods have been proposed to handle these shortcomings by incorporating a learning term so that the reconstructed high-resolution images can be guided towards these models. However, existing learning-based methods employ a binary hard-decision approach to determine whether the prior models are fully relevant or totally irrelevant. This approach, however, is inconsistent with many practical applications as the degree of relevance for the prior models may vary. In view of this, this paper proposes a new framework that adopts a soft learning approach in license plate super-resolution. The method integrates image SR with optical character recognition (OCR) to perform VLP SR. The importance of the prior models is estimated through relevance scores obtained from the OCR. These are then incorporated as a soft learning term into a new regularized cost function. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in handling license plate SR in both simulated and real experiments.