Long-term omni-directional ambient noise was collected at several sites in the Gulf of Mexico during 2004 and 2005. The Naval Oceanographic Office deployed bottom moored Environmental Acoustic Recording System (EARS) buoys approximately 159 nautical miles south of Panama City, Florida, in water depths of 3200 meters. The hydrophone of each buoy was 265 meters above the bottom. The data duration ranged from 10-14 months. The buoys were located near a major shipping lane, with an estimated 1.5 to 4.5 ships per day passing nearby. The data were sampled at 2500 Hz and have a bandwidth of 10-1000 Hz. Data are processed in eight 1/3-octave frequency bands, centered from 25 to 950 Hz, and monthly values of the following statistical quantities are computed from the resulting eight time series of noise spectral level: mean, median, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis and coherence time. Four hurricanes were recorded during the summer of 2004 and they have a major impact on all of the noise statistics. Noise levels at higher frequencies (400-950 Hz) peak during extremely windy months (summer hurricanes and winter storms). Standard deviation is least in the region 100-200 Hz but increases at higher frequencies, especially during periods of high wind variability (summer hurricanes). Skewness is positive from 25-400 Hz and negative from 630-950 Hz. Skewness and kurtosis are greatest near 100 Hz. Coherence time is low in shipping bands and high in weather bands, and it peaks during hurricanes. The noise coherence is also analyzed. The 14-month time series in each 1/3- octave band is highly correlated with other 1/3-octave band time series ranging from 2 octaves below to 2 octaves above the band's center frequency. Spatial coherence between hydrophones is also analyzed for hydrophone separations of 2.29, 2.56 and 4.84 km over a 10-month period. The noise field is highly coherent out to the maximum distance studied, 4.84 km. Additionally, fluctuations of each time series are analyzed to determine time scales of greatest variability. The 14-month data show clearly that variability occurs primarily over three time scales: 7-22 hours (shipping-related), 56-282 hours (2-12 days, weather-related) and over an 8-12 month period.

Impulsionado pela mecânica de leilões de energia, o aproveitamento energético de recursos eólicos no Brasil atravessa um momento de expansão em participação na matriz de energia elétrica nacional. Não obstante, o desempenho da geração dos parques eólicos que estão em operação foi monitorado e apresentou, em média, resultados aquém daquilo que fora confiado ao Sistema Interligado Nacional, revelando que as estimativas de geração projetadas e declaradas por alguns dos projetos vencedores dos processos licitatórios podem ter sido supervalorizadas. Tal cenário provocou a exigência de medidas mais conservadoras para participação nos leilões de energia, como a já vigente adoção do P90 no cálculo da Garantia Física e o aumento da duração da campanha de medição anemométrica, a entrar em rigor a partir de 2017. Sendo o vento uma variável estocástica, existem incertezas intrínsecas à Avaliação de Recursos Eólicos que influenciam no processo de estimação da geração por um parque eólico e que devem, desta forma, ser identificadas, quantificadas e reduzidas, na medida do possível. Nesse sentido, este trabalho estuda a influência da duração da campanha de medição anemométrica na Avaliação de Recursos Eólicos com base na aplicação do método MCP ferramenta imprescindível no processo de caracterização do regime eólico no longo prazo com vistas para aprimorar a exatidão das previsões de geração pela fonte eólica. Para tanto, foram utilizadas quatro bases de dados contendo séries temporais de velocidade e direção do vento referentes a uma região de interesse. Inicialmente, nove diferentes métodos MCP foram testados e comparados, sendo que o método Vertical Slice aplicado com auxílio do software Windographer destacou-se dos demais e mostrou-se mais aderente aos dados utilizados conforme as métricas de Erro Absoluto Médio e Raiz Quadrada do Erro Quadrático Médio. Posteriormente, as bases de dados foram configuradas para simular campanhas de medição anemométricas com durações que variavam de 2 a 6 anos, de modo a avaliar o comportamento da incerteza relativa à caracterização histórica de recursos eólicos e analisar em que medida esta incerteza impacta no cálculo da estimativa de geração de eletricidade por um conjunto de aerogeradores hipoteticamente dispostos naquele local de interesse. Foi possível verificar que, para os dados e casos analisados, à medida que se aumentou a duração da campanha de medição anemométrica, a incerteza da caracterização histórica de recursos eólicos sofreu queda significativa; determinando, por conseguinte, redução da incerteza total que permeia a geração eólica. Ademais, a quantidade de energia estimada para o parque eólico hipotético exemplificado também decresceu, permitindo melhora na acurácia da previsão de geração e beneficiando a confiabilidade da fonte eólica no sistema elétrico brasileiro. / Driven by the energy auctions system, the energetic harnessing of wind resource in Brazil is now going through a phase of expansion in participation in the national electric energy mix. Nevertheless, the performance of power generation of in-operation wind farms was monitored and the results proved to be, on average, below what was initially entrusted to the National Grid System, indicating that the energy production estimations projected by some energy auctions winners could have been overestimated. This scenario has caused the requirements for participating in the energy auctions to be more conservative, with measures such as the adoption of the P90 on the calculation of the physical guarantee and the increase of the wind measurement campaigns time span the latter to be enforced as of 2017. The wind is a stochastic resource, hence there are uncertainties intrinsic to the Wind Resource Assessment that influence a wind farms power generation estimation and that need to be properly identified, quantified and reduced, as far as possible. In this respect, the influence of a wind measurement campaigns time span on the Wind Resource Assessment based on MCP methods an important tool in the process of characterizing the long-term wind regime was studied in order to detect the potential of enhancing the accuracy of wind power generation forecasts. For this purpose, four databases containing time series of wind speed and direction belonging to a target site were used. Firstly, nine different MCP methods were tested and compared, of which the Vertical Slice method implemented on the software Windographer outperformed all the others according to the Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error metrics. Subsequently, the databases were set to simulate campaigns with time spans varying from 2 to 6 years, in such a way to evaluate the behavior of the uncertainty in the long-term wind speed and to analyze how this uncertainty impacts the calculation of the energy production estimation of an array of wind turbines hypothetically placed on that target site. From the analyzed data and cases, it was verified that, as the wind measurement campaigns time span was increased, the uncertainty in the long-term wind speed was significantly diminished, thereby reducing the overall uncertainty that pervades the wind power harnessing. Furthermore, the energy production estimation of the exemplified hypothetical wind farm also decreased, allowing an improvement on the accuracy of the energy generation prediction and benefiting the reliability of wind power in the Brazilian electric system.

Studien handlade om att belysa hur UAV:s kan komma till nytta i meteorologisk forskning och att ta reda på hur bra drönare är på att mäta meteorologiska storheter. Drönare, som också kallas UAV:s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) är mindre obemmanade luftfartyg som kan flyga autonomt eller fjärrstyras. Idag används drönare alltmer i meteorologi vilket beror mycket på den tekniska utvecklingen. Exempel på meteorologiska applikationer är mätning av vindhastighet och koncentrationen av koldioxid i luften som kan användas för att studera de lägsta atmosfäriska skikten. Storheter som mättes i detta projekt var vindhastighet, vindriktning, temperatur och relativ fuktighet på olika höjder. Mätningarna gjordes två gånger i en mätstation i Marsta, som ligger utanför Uppsala. Efteråt jämfördes datan från drönaren med data från en instrumenterad mast vid väderstationen. Resultaten visade att drönarens vindprofiler stämde ganska väl överens med mastens vindprofiler och den logaritmiska vindlagen. Under den första fältmätningen uppskattade drönaren att vindhastigheten var 8.13 ± 1.33 m/s vid hovring på tio meters höjd medan masten angav 8.41 ± 0.958 m/s. Drönarens mätvärden för vindriktningen var ibland bra och ibland mindre bra. Mätvärdena för temperaturen och den relativa fuktigheten avvek med upp mot 1 ◦C respektive 10 procentenheter. / The aim of this report was to study how UAV:s can be applied in meteorological research and find out how good drones are at measuring meteorological parameters. A drone, also known as an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) is a smaller unmanned aircraft that can fly autonomously or under remote control. Today, drones are used more frequently in meteorology, mostly due to the recent technological development. Examples of meteorological applications include measurements of wind speed and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air which can be used to analyze the lower parts of the atmosphere. In this project, the wind speed and its direction, the temperature and the relative humidity were measured at different heights. The measurements took place twice in Marsta which is a field station outside Uppsala. Then, the data from the drone was compared to the data from a weather tower at the instrumented station. The results showed that the drone’s wind profiles were relatively similar to the profiles according to the tower and the logarithmic wind profiles. For instance, during the first flight the drone estimated the wind speed to be 8.13 ± 1.33 m/s while hovering ten metres above the ground. The tower measured 8.41 ± 0.958 m/s at the same height. The drone’s estimations of the wind direction were sometimes accurate and sometimes not accurate. The temperature and relative humidity however was different by 1 ◦C and ten percentage units respectively.

This study attempted to explain an apparent inverse relationship between pack ice proximity and breeding success of Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle) on Cooper Island, a barrier island in the western Beaufort Sea near Barrow, AK. I elucidated the first linear relationship between energy density and body size for the elusive Arctic Cod (Boreogadus saida). I discovered and ground-truthed the existence of previously unknown guillemot foraging habitat on small 50 m2 ice floes distant from the pack ice. I developed new daily metrics for quantifying the provisioning to linear (8 d – 18 d) and Post-Linear (19 d – fledge) chicks. I found daily consensus between Linear and Post-Linear chicks about the level of provisioning at the colony. Finally, I explained those daily changes with significant correlations with wind speed and direction. / October 2007

This study attempted to explain an apparent inverse relationship between pack ice proximity and breeding success of Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle) on Cooper Island, a barrier island in the western Beaufort Sea near Barrow, AK. I elucidated the first linear relationship between energy density and body size for the elusive Arctic Cod (Boreogadus saida). I discovered and ground-truthed the existence of previously unknown guillemot foraging habitat on small 50 m2 ice floes distant from the pack ice. I developed new daily metrics for quantifying the provisioning to linear (8 d – 18 d) and Post-Linear (19 d – fledge) chicks. I found daily consensus between Linear and Post-Linear chicks about the level of provisioning at the colony. Finally, I explained those daily changes with significant correlations with wind speed and direction.

This study attempted to explain an apparent inverse relationship between pack ice proximity and breeding success of Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle) on Cooper Island, a barrier island in the western Beaufort Sea near Barrow, AK. I elucidated the first linear relationship between energy density and body size for the elusive Arctic Cod (Boreogadus saida). I discovered and ground-truthed the existence of previously unknown guillemot foraging habitat on small 50 m2 ice floes distant from the pack ice. I developed new daily metrics for quantifying the provisioning to linear (8 d – 18 d) and Post-Linear (19 d – fledge) chicks. I found daily consensus between Linear and Post-Linear chicks about the level of provisioning at the colony. Finally, I explained those daily changes with significant correlations with wind speed and direction.

Response of flexible structures — such as cable-supported bridges and aircraft wings — is associated with a number of uncertainties in structural and flow parameters. This thesis is aimed at efficient uncertainty quantification in a few such flow and flow-induced structural response problems. First, the uncertainty quantification in the lift force exerted on a submerged body in a potential flow is considered. To this end, a new method — termed here as semi-intrusive stochastic perturbation (SISP) — is proposed. A sensitivity analysis is also performed, where for the global sensitivity analysis (GSA) the Sobol’ indices are used. The polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) is used for estimating these indices. Next, two stability problems —divergence and flutter — in the aeroelasticity are studied in the context of reliability based design optimization (RBDO). Two modifications are proposed to an existing PCE-based metamodel to reduce the computational cost, where the chaos coefficients are estimated using Gauss quadrature to gain computational speed and GSA is used to create nonuniform grid to reduce the cost even further. The proposed method is applied on a rectangular unswept cantilever wing model. Next, reliability computation in limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) is considered. While the metamodel performs poorly in this case due to bimodality in the distribution, a new simulation-based scheme proposed to this end. Accordingly, first a reduced-order model (ROM) is used to identify the critical region in the random parameter space. Then the full-scale expensive model is run only over a this critical region. This is applied to the rectangular unswept cantilever wing with cubic and fifth order stiffness terms in its equation of motion. Next, the wind speed is modeled as a spatio-temporal process, and accordingly new representations of spatio-temporal random processes are proposed based on tensor decompositions of the covariance kernel. These are applied to three problems: a heat equation, a vibration, and a readily available covariance model for wind speed. Finally, to assimilate available field measurement data on wind speed and to predict based on this assimilation, a new framework based on the tensor decompositions is proposed. The framework is successfully applied to a set of measured data on wind speed in Ireland, where the prediction based on simulation is found to be consistent with the observed data.

Impulsionado pela mecânica de leilões de energia, o aproveitamento energético de recursos eólicos no Brasil atravessa um momento de expansão em participação na matriz de energia elétrica nacional. Não obstante, o desempenho da geração dos parques eólicos que estão em operação foi monitorado e apresentou, em média, resultados aquém daquilo que fora confiado ao Sistema Interligado Nacional, revelando que as estimativas de geração projetadas e declaradas por alguns dos projetos vencedores dos processos licitatórios podem ter sido supervalorizadas. Tal cenário provocou a exigência de medidas mais conservadoras para participação nos leilões de energia, como a já vigente adoção do P90 no cálculo da Garantia Física e o aumento da duração da campanha de medição anemométrica, a entrar em rigor a partir de 2017. Sendo o vento uma variável estocástica, existem incertezas intrínsecas à Avaliação de Recursos Eólicos que influenciam no processo de estimação da geração por um parque eólico e que devem, desta forma, ser identificadas, quantificadas e reduzidas, na medida do possível. Nesse sentido, este trabalho estuda a influência da duração da campanha de medição anemométrica na Avaliação de Recursos Eólicos com base na aplicação do método MCP ferramenta imprescindível no processo de caracterização do regime eólico no longo prazo com vistas para aprimorar a exatidão das previsões de geração pela fonte eólica. Para tanto, foram utilizadas quatro bases de dados contendo séries temporais de velocidade e direção do vento referentes a uma região de interesse. Inicialmente, nove diferentes métodos MCP foram testados e comparados, sendo que o método Vertical Slice aplicado com auxílio do software Windographer destacou-se dos demais e mostrou-se mais aderente aos dados utilizados conforme as métricas de Erro Absoluto Médio e Raiz Quadrada do Erro Quadrático Médio. Posteriormente, as bases de dados foram configuradas para simular campanhas de medição anemométricas com durações que variavam de 2 a 6 anos, de modo a avaliar o comportamento da incerteza relativa à caracterização histórica de recursos eólicos e analisar em que medida esta incerteza impacta no cálculo da estimativa de geração de eletricidade por um conjunto de aerogeradores hipoteticamente dispostos naquele local de interesse. Foi possível verificar que, para os dados e casos analisados, à medida que se aumentou a duração da campanha de medição anemométrica, a incerteza da caracterização histórica de recursos eólicos sofreu queda significativa; determinando, por conseguinte, redução da incerteza total que permeia a geração eólica. Ademais, a quantidade de energia estimada para o parque eólico hipotético exemplificado também decresceu, permitindo melhora na acurácia da previsão de geração e beneficiando a confiabilidade da fonte eólica no sistema elétrico brasileiro. / Driven by the energy auctions system, the energetic harnessing of wind resource in Brazil is now going through a phase of expansion in participation in the national electric energy mix. Nevertheless, the performance of power generation of in-operation wind farms was monitored and the results proved to be, on average, below what was initially entrusted to the National Grid System, indicating that the energy production estimations projected by some energy auctions winners could have been overestimated. This scenario has caused the requirements for participating in the energy auctions to be more conservative, with measures such as the adoption of the P90 on the calculation of the physical guarantee and the increase of the wind measurement campaigns time span the latter to be enforced as of 2017. The wind is a stochastic resource, hence there are uncertainties intrinsic to the Wind Resource Assessment that influence a wind farms power generation estimation and that need to be properly identified, quantified and reduced, as far as possible. In this respect, the influence of a wind measurement campaigns time span on the Wind Resource Assessment based on MCP methods an important tool in the process of characterizing the long-term wind regime was studied in order to detect the potential of enhancing the accuracy of wind power generation forecasts. For this purpose, four databases containing time series of wind speed and direction belonging to a target site were used. Firstly, nine different MCP methods were tested and compared, of which the Vertical Slice method implemented on the software Windographer outperformed all the others according to the Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error metrics. Subsequently, the databases were set to simulate campaigns with time spans varying from 2 to 6 years, in such a way to evaluate the behavior of the uncertainty in the long-term wind speed and to analyze how this uncertainty impacts the calculation of the energy production estimation of an array of wind turbines hypothetically placed on that target site. From the analyzed data and cases, it was verified that, as the wind measurement campaigns time span was increased, the uncertainty in the long-term wind speed was significantly diminished, thereby reducing the overall uncertainty that pervades the wind power harnessing. Furthermore, the energy production estimation of the exemplified hypothetical wind farm also decreased, allowing an improvement on the accuracy of the energy generation prediction and benefiting the reliability of wind power in the Brazilian electric system.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T14:53:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauro Sergio Silva Pinto.pdf: 649420 bytes, checksum: 2659c3409645c14d4672fc5713698782 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-10-27 / The time of flight method for determining the wind speed using ultrasonic transducers is presented in this work. The techniques of phase difference and threshold detection for determining the time of flight are presented. A more detailed study of the phase difference technique is carried out in order to determine the design specifications using this method with respect to the noise sensitivity, dependence of the measurement range with the medium temperature and measurement resolution. A design specification example is presented in order to illustrate the proposed procedures. / Apresenta-se neste trabalho o método do tempo de trânsito para determinação da velocidade do vento utilizando transdutores ultra-sônicos. Apresentam-se as técnicas da diferença de fase e detecção de limiar para determinação do tempo de trânsito deste método. Um estudo mais aprofundado é realizado para o método da diferença de fase de forma a determinar as especificações de projeto usando esse método, com relação à sensibilidade ao ruído, dependência da faixa de medição com temperatura do meio e resolução de medição. Um exemplo de especificação de projeto é apresentado de forma a ilustrar os procedimentos desenvolvidos.

Dans cette thèse, nous étudions la garantie tempête consacrée aux dommages causés par le vent et un développement de l'assurance comportementale à travers le risque automobile. Nous associons des informations extérieures comme la vitesse du vent aux données de l'assurance. Nous proposons la construction d'un indice tempête pour compléter et renforcer l'évaluation des dégâts causés par les tempêtes majeures. Nous définissons ensuite un partage du territoire français en 6 zones tempêtes, dépendant des corrélations extrêmes de vent, pour tester plusieurs scénarios. Ces différents tests et considérations nous permettent d'améliorer notre indice tempête. Nous nous appuyons sur les modèles de la théorie des valeurs extrêmes pour montrer l'impact de la variabilité sur le calcul des périodes de retour et besoins en fonds propres. Nous soulignons ainsi les difficultés rencontrées pour dégager des résultats robustes en lien avec les évènements extrêmes. Pour ce qui est de l'assurance automobile, nous testons différentes méthodes pour répondre aux évolutions techniques et réglementaires. Nous caractérisons la partition homme / femme en utilisant la procédure logistique, l'analyse des correspondances multiples ou les arbres de classification. Nous montrons qu'il est possible de compenser l'absence de la variable sexe par d'autres informations spécifiques à l'assuré ou à son véhicule et en particulier l'utilisation de relevés kilométriques. Enfin, nous nous intéressons à l'expérience acquise par les conducteurs novices. Nous étudions le comportement sur la route de l'assuré pour créer de nouvelles classes de risques / In this Ph.D. Dissertation we study the storm guarantee dedicated to the damage caused by the wind and a development of the behavioral insurance through the automobile risk. We associate external information like the wind speed to insurance data. We propose the construction of a storm index to complete and strengthen the evaluation of the damages caused by the major storms. Then we define a partition of the French territory in 6 zones storms, depending on extreme wind correlations to test several scenarios. These various tests and considerations allow us to improve our storm index. We lean on extreme value theory models to show the impact of the variability on the calculation of return periods and capital requirements. We underline the difficulties to obtain strong results in connection with the extreme events. Concerning car insurance, we test various methods to answer the technical and legal evolutions. We characterize the man/woman partition by using the logistic procedure, the multiple correspondence analysis or the classification trees. We show that it is possible to compensate for the absence of the sex variable with other information specific to the insurants or to their vehicle and in particular the use of kilometric data. Finally, we are interested in the acquired experience by young drivers. We study the behavior on the road of the insurants to create new classes of risks