Zugl.: Magdeburg, Univ., Diss., 2009

Pas de résumé / The level set method was introduced by Osher & Sethian (1988) as a general technique to capture moving interfaces. It has been used to study crystal growth, to simulate water and fire for computer graphics applications, to study two-phase flows and in many other fields. The wellknown problem of the level set method is the following: if the flow velocity is not constant, the level set scalar may become strongly distorted. Thus, the numerical integration may suffer from loss of accuracy. In level set methods, this problem is remedied by the reinitialization procedure, i.e. by reconstruction of the level set function in a way to satisfy the eikonal equation. We propose an alternative approach. We modify directly the level set equation by embedding a source term. The exact expression of this term is such that the eikonal equation is automatically satisfied. Furthermore on the interface, this term is equal to zero. In the meantime, the advantage of our approach is this: the exact expression of the source term allows for the possibility of derivation of its local approximate forms, of first-and-higher order accuracy. Compared to the extension velocity method, this may open the simplifications in realization of level set methods. Compared to the standard approach with the reinitialization procedure, this may give the economies in the number of level set re-initializations, and also, due to reduced number of reinitializations, one may expect an improvement in resolution of zero-set level. Hence, the objective of the present dissertation is to describe and to assess this approach in different test cases.

Le soudage hybride arc / laser représente une solution adéquate à l'assemblage de tôles d'acier de forte épaisseur. La présence d'une source laser en amont de la torche MIG permet d'accroître la productivité du procédé tout en assurant une excellente qualité de la soudure. Cependant la phénoménologie complexe de ce procédé multiphysique n'est pas encore totalement maîtrisée, ce qui motive le développement d'outils de simulation numérique. La présente étude s'est déroulée dans le cadre d'un projet multipartenaires "SISHYFE" (ANR Matériaux et Procédés).Dans ce but un modèle éléments finis 3D non stationnaire a été développé. Construit à partir de l'approche level set, il est en mesure de simuler un procédé multi-passes de soudage hybride arc / laser. Il a été développé autour de quatre principaux axes. (1) Une modélisation plus réaliste de l'apport de chaleur a conduit à la définition d'un nouveau modèle basé sur le rayonnement thermique pour décrire la source MIG. (2) Grâce au couplage entre l'intégration de termes source de matière et de chaleur dans les équations de conservation et l'actualisation de l'interface gaz / métal, le modèle proposé est capable de simuler le développement d'un cordon de soudure. (3) L'intégration d'une modélisation des écoulements du bain de fusion dans une approche level set a été évaluée et son impact sur la distribution thermique dans le métal analysé. (4) La simulation de la formation des contraintes pendant et après soudage a été possible grâce à l'adaptation d'un solveur thermomécanique.La modélisation finale a permis de simuler une configuration industrielle de soudage hybride arc / laser multi-passes. Des mesures expérimentales effectuées par les partenaires du projet "SISHYFE" ont été utilisées afin d'évaluer le modèle et d'éprouver sa capacité à reproduire l'expérience. / Hybrid arc / laser welding represents the solution for high thickness steel sheets assembly. The laser heat source added to the MIG torch improves the process productivity while respecting quality standards. Nevertheless, the phenomenology of the process remains complex and not totally understood. This is the thrust for the development of numerical simulation. The present study has been carried out as part of the "SISHYFE" Material and Process ANR project.For that purpose, a new non stationary 3D finite element model has been developed. Based on the level set approach, it allows to simulate a multipass hybrid arc/ laser welding process. The work focused on four research axes. (1) A more representative model of the plasma heat source has been defined, based on thermal radiation. (2) The coupling of a material and a heat source term integrated in the conservation equations and the update of the level set gas / metal interface is able to correctly model the formation of the weld bead. (3) The integration of a fluid flow model within the level set approach has been evaluated and its impact on thermal distribution analyzed. (4) The stress formation during and after the process has been modeled through the adaptation of a thermo-mechanical solver to the previous modeling in a level set framework.In the end, the developed model has shown to be able to simulate an industrial multi-pass hybrid arc / laser welding process. Experimental measurements provided by the project partners have been used to evaluate the model and to assess its abilities to reproduce experimental features.

L’optimisation des transferts de chaleur est un enjeu de recherche important pour améliorer les performances des systèmes énergétiques, notamment des échangeurs de chaleur. Cette optimisation peut s’appuyer sur différents leviers, comme le choix du régime d’écoulement, ou la modification de la géométrie de l’échangeur. C’est sur ce deuxième angle que nous avons travaillé au cours de cette thèse, en proposant une méthode d’optimisation topologique. Le nombre de paramètres impliqués dans cette méthode est important (plusieurs milliers). Une méthode à gradient est donc employée. Le calcul du gradient de la fonction de coût en fonction des paramètres de design est facilité par l’emploi d’une méthode adjointe. Le problème direct est résolu à l’aide de la méthode de Lattice Boltzmann (LBM). L’implémentation aisée des conditions aux limites dans l’algorithme LBM est un bénéfice pour l’optimisation topologique. De plus, la formulation de la LBM est explicite et hautement parallélisable, notamment sur les cartes graphiques (GPU), utilisées au cours de cette thèse. Ensuite le domaine d’optimisation est composé de fluide et de solide. Leur distribution est définie par une fonction Level- Set (LSF). Cette fonction est continue et le contour zéro définit précisément l’interface fluide/solide. La méthode d’optimisation développée a été testée et validée pour différents objectifs (minimisation de la température moyenne, maximisation de l’échange de chaleur) et contraintes (limitation des pertes de charges, porosité fixée). / Heat transfer enhancement is an important research area to improve the efficiency of energy systems, especially for heat exchangers. There are different ways of optimizing such systems as the choice of flow regime or the modification on the fluid channels geometry. This thesis is focused on the latter option with the development of a topology optimization method. The number of design parameters involved in this technique is important (several thousands) so a gradient-based method is employed. The calculation of the cost function gradient with respect to the design variables is done with an adjoint-state method. The forward problem is solved with the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM). The simple implementation of the LBM boundary conditions is an interesting feature for topology optimization. The LBM algorithm is also highly parallelizable and GPU cards have been used in this thesis to obtain fast computational times. The efficiency of the LBM is important because the forward problem must be solved at each optimization step. Then, the optimization domain is composed of either solid of fluid elements. This material distribution is defined by a Level-Set Function (LSF). This is a continuous function in which the zero contour defines the fluid/solid interface, allowing an accurate description of both domains. The proposed optimization method has been tested for different objectives (minimization of the mean temperature, maximization of heat transfer rate) and constraints (pressure drops limitation, fixed porosity).

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Computer Science. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/15). Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation presents results for two separate problems, both in the context of variational fracture models. The first problem involved developing and analyzing models of fracture in which we modeled the energy dissipated by crack growth as concentrated on the front of the crack. While many engineering models of fracture are based on a notion of crack front, there had not been a rigorous definition. We present the first work in this area, which includes a natural weak definition of crack front and front speed, a model of fracture whose evolution is described at the crack front, and a relaxation result that shows that these front based dissipations are all effectively equivalent to a Griffith-type dissipation. The second problem involved the computation of stationary points for Mumford-Shah and fracture using a level set method. Our method improves on existing techniques in that it can handle tips in the singular set and can find minimizers that previous techniques are unable to resolve.

Our method can be naturally applied in the application of manga stylization rendering. We propose a novel colorization technique that propagates color over manga regions exhibiting pattern-continuity as well as intensity-continuity. The proposed method works effectively on colorizing black-and-white manga which contains intensive amount of strokes, hatching, halftoning and screening. Once the user scribbles on the drawing, a local, statistical based pattern feature obtained with Gabor wavelet filters is applied to measure the pattern-continuity. The boundary is then propagated by the level set method that monitors the pattern-continuity. Regions with open boundaries or multiple disjointed regions with similar patterns can be sensibly segmented by a single scribble. With the segmented regions, various colorization techniques can be applied to replace colors, colorize with stroke preservation, or even convert pattern to shading. Based on the observation of the manga features, we then propose a framework to generate manga-style backgrounds from real photographs. It frees manga artists from the tedious and time-consuming background production. To mimic how manga artists produce the tidy background, it composes of two major steps, the line drawing and the screen laying. A line importance model is proposed to simplify and embolden lines in a stylish way. During the screen laying, texture analysis is utilized to automatically match the regions in photographs with screens in the database. Two types of screening mechanisms are proposed for matching shading & texture as well as the high-level structures. / Segmentation has always been a crucial and challenging topic in various computer vision and graphics applications. Information from image features can be incorporated into image segmentation techniques to make the process more accurate and robust. This dissertation focuses on encoding these feature information into the image processing procedures, including image segmentation and manga stylization rendering. / The fundamental part of this dissertation includes the discussion on the construction of the speed function, which is important in applying the curve-evolution based image segmentation. We firstly investigate the curvature term in the speed function, and then show how to transform the image segmentation problem into an interface propagating problem. We propose two formulations to enhance the speed function in level set methods, in order to tackle the segmentation problem of tagged MR images. First, a relaxation factor is introduced, aiming at relaxing the boundary condition when the boundary is unclear or blurry. Second, in order to incorporate human visual sensitive information from the image, a simple and general model is introduced to incorporate shape, texture and color features. By further extending this model, we present a unified approach for segmenting and tracking of the high-resolution color anatomical Chinese Visible Human (CVH) data. The underlying relationship of these two applications relies on the proposed variational framework for the speed function. Our proposed method can be used to segment the first slice of the volume data. Then based on the extracted boundary on the first slice, our method can also be adapted to track the boundary of the homogeneous organs among the subsequent serial images. In addition to the promising segmentation results, the tracking procedure requires only a small amount of user intervention. / Qu Yingge. / "July 2007." / Advisers: Heng Pheng Ann; Wong Tien Tsin. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-01, Section: B, page: 0433. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-120). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This thesis discusses how to use topology and shape optimization, specifically the level set method, for innovative design. The level set method is a numerical algorithm that simulates the expansion of dynamic implicit surfaces. In this research, the equations for manufacturability are generated and solved through use of the level set method joined with the COMSOL multi-physics package. Specific constraints are added to make the optimization practical for engineering design. The resulting method was applied to design the best underlying support structure, conforming to both curvature and manufacturability constraints, for the longerons used with the International Space Station solar panels.

An interface-preserving level set method is incorporated into the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) numerical method to simulate the application of the green water phenomena around a platform and the breaking wave above the deck. In the present study, this method is used to evaluate the laminar in two dimension plane with fixed orthogonal grids. In this method, it is assumed that the free surface is modeled as immiscible two-phase flow (air and water). A level set function can present the individual fluids, and the interface between two-phase is represented by the zero level set. In addition, the level set evolution equation is coupled with the conservation equations for mass and momentum, which will be solved in the transformed plane. For different purposes, there are several block domains in the application grid. Chimera domain decomposition technique is employed to handle such embedding, overlapping, or matching grids. Several simple test cases were performed to demonstrate the feasibility of this method. The comparisons between the ENO scheme and the WENO scheme will be illustrated in the Zalesak's disk case and will further prove that the WENO scheme is superior to the ENO scheme. The propagation of continuous wave case will validate some properties of wave and determine the importance of some parameters in code. Moreover, the method will be applied in simulation of green water around a two dimensional platform. By configuring different deck heights, some distinct phenomena can be represented. Lastly, it is crucial to observe the green water phenomena around the platform deck by applying the velocity-extrapolation routine.

Pore-scale simulation has become increasingly important in recent years as a tool to understand multiphase flow behavior. Wettability affects aspects of flow such as capillary-pressure saturation curves, residual saturation of each phase, and relative permeability. Simulation of wettability at the pore-scale is still a non-trivial problem, and many different approaches exist to model it. In this work, we implement a variational level set formulation to impose different contact angles at the solid-fluid-fluid contact line for two-phase flow in simple rhomboidal pore geometries, and calculate the maximum mean curvature (equivalently capillary pressure) for each case. We compare our results with a detailed set of analytical and experimental results in a range of pore geometries of varying wettability from Mason and Morrow (1994), and demonstrate the accuracy of this method. While the simulations shown are for relatively simple geometries, the method has the ability to handle arbitrarily complex geometry (such as input from X-ray microtomography imaging). / text