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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, Clara Smart, D. P. Whitesell, Christopher N. Roman, Steven Carey Dec 2011

Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, Clara Smart, D. P. Whitesell, Christopher N. Roman, Steven Carey

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Grain size characteristics of pyroclastic deposits provide valuable information about source eruption energetics and depositional processes. Maximum size and sorting are often used to discriminate between fallout and sediment gravity flow processes during explosive eruptions. In the submarine environment the collection of such data in thick pyroclastic sequences is extremely challenging and potentially time consuming. A method has been developed to extract grain size information from stereo images collected by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). In the summer of 2010 the ROV Hercules collected a suite of stereo images from a thick pumice sequence in the caldera walls of Kolumbo …


Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, Gabrielle Inglis, Clara Smart, Christopher Roman, Steven Carey Dec 2011

Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, Gabrielle Inglis, Clara Smart, Christopher Roman, Steven Carey

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Efficiently identifying and localizing diffuse sea floor venting at hydrothermal and cold seep sites is often difficult. Actively venting fluids are usually identified by a temperature induced optical shimmering seen during direct visual inspections or in video data collected by vehicles working close to the sea floor. Relying on such direct methods complicates establishing spatial relations between areas within a survey covering a broad area. Our recent work with a structured light laser system has shown that venting can also be detected in the image data in an automated fashion. A structured light laser system consists of a camera and …


Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, C. Smart, D. P. Whitesell, C. Roman, S. Carey Dec 2011

Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, C. Smart, D. P. Whitesell, C. Roman, S. Carey

Christopher N. Roman

Grain size characteristics of pyroclastic deposits provide valuable information about source eruption energetics and depositional processes. Maximum size and sorting are often used to discriminate between fallout and sediment gravity flow processes during explosive eruptions. In the submarine environment the collection of such data in thick pyroclastic sequences is extremely challenging and potentially time consuming. A method has been developed to extract grain size information from stereo images collected by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). In the summer of 2010 the ROV Hercules collected a suite of stereo images from a thick pumice sequence in the caldera walls of Kolumbo …


Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, G. Inglis, C. Smart, C. Roman, S. Carey Dec 2011

Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, G. Inglis, C. Smart, C. Roman, S. Carey

Christopher N. Roman

Efficiently identifying and localizing diffuse sea floor venting at hydrothermal and cold seep sites is often difficult. Actively venting fluids are usually identified by a temperature induced optical shimmering seen during direct visual inspections or in video data collected by vehicles working close to the sea floor. Relying on such direct methods complicates establishing spatial relations between areas within a survey covering a broad area. Our recent work with a structured light laser system has shown that venting can also be detected in the image data in an automated fashion. A structured light laser system consists of a camera and …


Concept Tests For A New Wire Flying Vehicle Designed To Achieve High Horizontal Resolution Profiling In Deep Water, Chris Roman, Dave Hebert Dec 2011

Concept Tests For A New Wire Flying Vehicle Designed To Achieve High Horizontal Resolution Profiling In Deep Water, Chris Roman, Dave Hebert

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Efficiently profiling the water column to achieve both high vertical and horizontal resolution from a moving vessel in deep water is difficult. Current solutions, such as CTD tow-yos, moving vessel profilers, and undulating tow bodies, are limited by ship speed or water depth. As a consequence, it is difficult to obtain oceanographic sections with sufficient resolution to identify many relevant scales over the deeper sections of the water column. This paper presents a new concept for a profiling vehicle that slides up and down a towed wire in a controlled manner using the lift created by wing foils. The wings …


Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, J. Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Christopher N. Roman Apr 2011

Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, J. Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Christopher N. Roman

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

There is a persistent need for high resolution photographic and bathymetric maps of the sea floor for many research areas in marine geology, biology and archaeology. This poster will present recent work using high frequency multibeam sonars, stereo vision and structured light laser imaging techniques to create maps with centimeter resolution for these applications. This research involves the development of new image and sonar processing techniques that combat the typical difficulties of imperfect navigation information, limited sensor ranges and adverse environmental conditions associated with using marine robotic vehicles in the ocean. Data for this work has been collected with the …


Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Chris Roman Apr 2011

Development Of High Resolution Sea Floor Mapping Tools And Techniques, Gabrielle Inglis, Ian Vaughn, Clara Smart, Chris Roman

Christopher N. Roman

There is a persistent need for high resolution photographic and bathymetric maps of the sea floor for many research areas in marine geology, biology and archaeology. This poster will present recent work using high frequency multibeam sonars, stereo vision and structured light laser imaging techniques to create maps with centimeter resolution for these applications. This research involves the development of new image and sonar processing techniques that combat the typical difficulties of imperfect navigation information, limited sensor ranges and adverse environmental conditions associated with using marine robotic vehicles in the ocean. Data for this work has been collected with the …


Balloon Borne Mars Research Platforms, Sean Michael Hancock Jan 2011

Balloon Borne Mars Research Platforms, Sean Michael Hancock

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Aerial platforms can fill a measurement gap between orbiters and rovers, providing planetary scale high resolution in situ measurements, access to scientifically interesting terrain that is either inaccessible or hazardous to rovers, and serve as a planet-wide delivery platforms to deploy surface probes and rovers to areas inaccessible given existing entry, descent, and landing systems. A permanent robotic outpost on the Martian surface can utilize locally-derived hydrogen as a lifting gas for balloon systems deployed from Mars. That approach can simplify the inflation and launch of aerial vehicles while allowing for a long duration deployment campaign that is not constrained …


The Integrated Wrf/Urban Modeling System: Development, Evaluation, And Applications To Urban Environmental Problems, Fei Chen, Hiroyuki Kusaka, Robert Bornstein, Jason Ching, C.S.B. Grimmond, Susanne Grossman-Clarke, Thomas Loridan, Kevin W. Manning, Alberto Martilli, Shiguang Miao, David J. Sailor, Francisco P. Salamanca, Haider Taha, Mukul Tewari, Xuemei Wang, Andrzej A. Wyszogrodzki, Chaolin Zhang Jan 2011

The Integrated Wrf/Urban Modeling System: Development, Evaluation, And Applications To Urban Environmental Problems, Fei Chen, Hiroyuki Kusaka, Robert Bornstein, Jason Ching, C.S.B. Grimmond, Susanne Grossman-Clarke, Thomas Loridan, Kevin W. Manning, Alberto Martilli, Shiguang Miao, David J. Sailor, Francisco P. Salamanca, Haider Taha, Mukul Tewari, Xuemei Wang, Andrzej A. Wyszogrodzki, Chaolin Zhang

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

To bridge the gaps between traditional mesoscale modeling and microscale modeling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in collaboration with other agencies and research groups, has developed an integrated urban modeling system coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model as a community tool to address urban environmental issues. The core of this WRF/urban modeling system consists of: 1) three methods with different degrees of freedom to parameterize urban surface processes, ranging from a simple bulk parameterization to a sophisticated multi-layer urban canopy model with an indoor outdoor exchange sub-model that directly interacts with the atmospheric boundary layer, …