Soil moisture condition of a watershed plays a significant role in separation of rainfall into infiltration and surface runoff, and hence is a key parameter for the majority of physical hydrological models. Due to the large difference in dielectric constants of dry soil and water, microwave remote sensing and particularly the commonly available synthetic aperture radar is a potential tool for such studies. The main aim of this study is to produce the distributed soil moisture maps of a catchment from active microwave imagery. For this purpose, nine field trips are performed within a small basin in western Anatolia and point surface soil moisture values are collected with a Time Domain Reflectometer. The field studies are planned to match radar image acquisitions and accomplished over the water year of 2004 - 2005. In this context, first, the Dubois Model, a semi-empirical backscatter model is utilized in the reverse order to develop radar backscatter &amp / #8211 / soil roughness relationship and soil roughness maps of the study area are obtained. Then another relationship is built between radar backscatter and the three governing surface parameters: local incidence angle, soil moisture and soil roughness, which is later used in the soil moisture estimation methods. Depending on land use and vegetation cover condition, surface soil moisture maps of the catchment are produced by Backscatter Correction Factors, Water Cloud Model and Basin Indexes methods. In the last part of the study, the soil moisture maps of the basin are input to a semi-distributed hydrological model, HEC-HMS, as the initial soil moisture condition of a flood event simulation. In order to investigate the contribution of distributed initial soil moisture data on model outputs, simulation of the same flood event is also performed with the lumped initial soil moisture condition. Finally, a comparison between both the distributed and lumped model simulation outputs and with the observed data is carried out.

In this study the incipient motion of coarse solitary particles having different specific weights and shapes was investigated. A tilting flume of rectangular cross-section having a net working length of 12 m was used through the experiments. The slope of the channel and the discharge in the channel are the two basic variable parameters that determine the initiation of motion. Particles made of cement and mixture of cement and iron dust in certain ratios were used in the experiments with an obstructing element of various heights right behind the particles. Dimensionless hydraulic parameters determined from theoretical analysis were related to each other. Velocity profiles over the flow depths were measured and flow conditions corresponding to critical conditions were evaluated in terms of critical velocities and shear velocities. The findings of this study were compared with the results of similar studies given in the literature.

The aim of the thesis, is to find the transient force applied by an individual transient liquid slug on an elbow at the end of a horizontal line due to an impact. The liquid slug is driven by pressurized air in a tank located upstream of the pipeline. The time dependent pressure distribution along the elbow and a vertical extension segment after the elbow was solved, with a 1-D numerical approach along a curved line mesh. For this purpose / firstly, a 3-D axial turbulent velocity profile function was assumed for the slug, with its shape allowed to sway towards the convex side of the elbow along the curved mesh with the aid of a calibration tool. Then, the pressure values were calculated by using 1-D application of Reynolds Equations in cylindrical polar and cartesian coordinates for the elbow and the vertical extension segment, respectively. The transient force acting on the elbow and the following vertical extension segment was found by using these calculated pressure values and applying conservation of momentum principle over the volume elements selected along the elbow and the vertical extension segment. For the analysis of the slug motion from the pressurizer tank to the elbow, a previously written computer code BOZKUS-2 was utilized. Then, the elbow and the vertical extension segment calculations in this study were made with a new code KAYHAN, which is an improved version of BOZKUS-2. The calculated transient force and impact pressures at the elbow were also compared with those from previous studies.

Disinfection of the municipal water systems is mostly achieved by means of chlorine addition at water treatment plants known as sources. Thus, there should be an adequate chlorine concentration at the source for an effective disinfection throughout the system by considering upper and lower limits of disinfectant. However, since the disinfectants are reactive and decays through the system, chlorine added at the source may not be enough to maintain desired disinfectant residuals which may lead to water quality problems in the water distribution system. Moreover, the disinfectants such as chlorine has also an effect to be carcinogen due to formation of disinfectant by-products. Thus, the system should balance the amount of disinfectant supplied while minimizing the health risk. In such a case, it is recommended that one or more booster disinfection stations can be located throughout the system. Such a method can provide more uniform distribution of the chlorine concentration while reducing the amount of the disinfectant used. In this thesis, optimum scheduling, and injection rates of the booster disinfection stations have been searched. The objective is to minimize the injected mass dosage rate subjected to the provision of adequate and more uniform residual concentration in the network. Determination of variable network hydraulics and chlorine concentrations is held out by EPANET network simulation sofware. A C++ code was developed to interface with EPANET by means of the EPANET Programmer&#039 / s Toolkit for linear optimization of the disinfectant mass dosage rate applied to the network.

In this thesis study / mechanism and modeling of tsunamis generated by landslides are investigated. Landslide parameters affecting the surface wave characterisics are studied. In order to understand occurance of this kind of tsunamis, among many historical tsunamis, the ones that are triggered by landslides are detected and studied. The generation of the landslide generated tsunamis are modeled using TWO-LAYER model, which solves nonlinear long wave equations simultaneously within two interfacing layers with necessary boundary conditions at the sea bed, interface and water surface. The model is applied to one of the possible landslides at offshore Yalova in the Sea of Marmara. Two of the controlling parameters, which are the density and the thickness of the slid material, are analysed and a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the level of their effects on the evolution and amplitude of the tsunami source. Furthermore, the propagation and coastal amplification of the landslide generated waves are investigated using the tsunami simulation and visualization code NAMI DANCE. The results are presented, compared and discussed.

The focus of the present thesis is on the joint use of cameras and inertial sensors, a recent area of active research. Within our scope, the performance of body state estimation is investigated with isolated inertial sensors, isolated cameras and finally with a fusion of two types of sensors within a Kalman Filtering framework. The study consists of both simulation and real hardware experiments. The body state estimation problem is restricted to a single axis rotation where we estimate turn angle and turn rate. This experimental setup provides a simple but effective means of assessing the benefits of the fusion process. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis is carried out in our simulation experiments to explore the sensitivity of the estimation performance to varying levels of calibration errors. It is shown by experiments that state estimation is more robust to calibration errors when the sensors are used jointly. For the fusion of sensors, the Indirect Kalman Filter is considered as well as the Direct Form Kalman Filter. This comparative study allows us to assess the contribution of an accurate system dynamical model to the final state estimates. Our simulation and real hardware experiments effectively show that the fusion of the sensors eliminate the unbounded error growth characteristic of inertial sensors while final state estimation outperforms the use of cameras alone. Overall we can v demonstrate that the Kalman based fusion result in bounded error, high performance estimation of body state. The results are promising and suggest that these benefits can be extended to body state estimation for multiple degrees of freedom.

Deficient concrete structures are serious danger in seismic zones. In order to minimize economical and human loss, these structures should be retrofitted. Selecting suitable retrofitting schemes requires detailed investigation of these systems. Considering these facts, this study aims to calibrate analytical models of systems with chevron braces and internal steel frames / and evaluate their seismic performances. First, analytical models of the frames with braces and internal steel frames were prepared and then their responses were compared with cyclic responses of experimental studies. Results of these models were used to determine performance limits by the methods proposed by TEC2007 and ASCE/SEI-41. Then, calibrated models were employed for time history analyses with various scales of Duzce ground motion and analytical results were compared with experimental findings. Seismic performance of these systems was also evaluated by using aforementioned codes. Finally, evaluated retrofitting schemes were applied to a 4-story 3-bay reinforced concrete frame that was obtained from an existing deficient structure and effectiveness of applied retrofitting schemes was investigated in detail.

For the process of social and economic development, hydropower energy has an important role such as being renewable, clean, and having less impact on the environment. In decision of the hydropower potential of a study area, the preliminary condition is the availability of the gages in the area. However, in Turkey, the gages in working order are limited and getting decreased in recent years. Therefore, the satellite based precipitation estimates has been gaining importance to predict runoff for ungauged basins. In this study, &Ccedil / oruh basin, which is located in the north-eastern part of Turkey, is selected to perform hydrologic modeling. The input precipitation data for the model are provided from the observations at meteorological stations and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite products (3B42 and 3B43). TRMM satellite is used to monitor and study the rainfall distribution. The precipitation radar on the TRMM is the first radar to make precipitation estimation from the space. Using both precipitation data, HEC-HMS, being well known hydrological model, is applied to the &Ccedil / oruh Basin for 2005 and 2003 water years. To distinguish the differences in the runoff simulations and water budget, comparisons are done with respect to flow monitoring stations. Statistical criteria show that model simulation results obtained from TRMM 3B42 products are promising in estimating the water potential in ungauged basins.

The laboratory cutting specific energy is widely used to estimate the cuttability of rocks by a roadheader fitted with sharp picks. Sharp picks on the other hand become blunt due to wear in time and require replacement. Although it is known that the pick blunting affects adversely the rock cuttability, no study exists to show the relationships between the degree of pick wear and the cutting specific energy obtained by standard cutting tests. In this study, standard cutting tests were carried out on different rock types, with picks having varying degrees of blunting. The relationships between wear flats and the cutting forces, specific energies and size distribution for various rock properties such as uniaxial compressive strength, tensile strength, cone indenter number, shore hardness, schmidth hammer hardness, density and grain size were established. The mean cutting force and the cutting specific energy have been found to increase 2-3 times and 4-5 times respectively with 4 mm wear flat as compared to sharp picks as the strength and density of rocks increase. No relation exists between mineral grain size and the cutting performance. A definite relation could not be established between the wear land and the size distribution of the product. Charts have been produced to predict critical wear flats for different rock property values considering 25 MJ/m&sup3 / as the limiting specific energy above which poor cutting performance occurs. Nine prediction models have been developed by statistical analysis to estimate the laboratory cutting specific energy from various rock properties and wear rates.

In this thesis, we propose a hierarchical level decision support system for workforce planning in medical equipment maintenance services. In strategic level, customer clusters and the total number of field engineers is determined via a mixed integer programming and simulation. In MIP, we aim to find the minimum number of field engineers. Afterwards, we analyze service measures such as response time via simulation. In tactical level, quarterly training program for the field engineers is determined via mixed integer programming and the results are interpreted in terms of service level via simulation.