Hurricane Florence (2018) was unique due to its slow storm motion during landfall, causing convective rainbands to produce high amounts of precipitation along the coast of North Carolina. This study focuses on the relationship between precipitation asymmetries and atmospheric stability surrounding the tropical cyclone (TC) during the landfall period of a nearly-stationary TC. Previous research with idealized hurricane simulations suggests that atmospheric stability may vary surrounding a TC during landfall, with the atmosphere destabilizing offshore and stabilizing onshore. However, this finding has not been studied using a realistic approach. Due to Hurricane Florence's slow motion, the storm was situated at the land-ocean boundary for multiple days, providing an ideal opportunity to examine the role of atmospheric stability in modifying hurricane precipitation during landfall. This study uses the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) version 3.6.1 to produce high-resolution simulations to examine the variations in precipitation and atmospheric stability surrounding Hurricane Florence. Precipitation accumulation at different temporal scales was used to determine that asymmetries existed during the landfall period. Observed and model-simulated Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) were used to measure stability surrounding the TC. Simulated CAPE indicates that there was a significant difference between stability right- and left-of-track. In addition to a control simulation, two experimental simulations were conducted by modifying the land surface to vary the heat and moisture exchange coefficient (HS) and hold the surface roughness (Z0) constant. By isolating the HS to be more moist or dry, the altered low-level moisture was hypothesized to cause the precipitation and convection distributions to become more symmetrical or asymmetrical, respectively. The results from the experimental simulations showed that the altered land surface affects the relative humidity from the surface to 950 mb, which has an immediate impact on stability off-shore left-of-track. Overall, the precipitation and stability asymmetries were not significantly impacted by the altered near-surface moisture, indicating other physical factors contribute to the asymmetries. The results of this study provide insight into the role of atmospheric instability in generating asymmetrical precipitation distributions in landfalling TCs, which may be particularly important in slow-moving TCs like Hurricane Florence. / Master of Science / Landfalling tropical weather systems such as hurricanes can significantly impact coastal communities due to severe flooding and damaging winds. Hurricane Florence (2018) affected coastal and inland communities in North Carolina and South Carolina when the storm produced a significant amount of precipitation over the coastal region. During landfall, the center of Hurricane Florence moved slowly parallel to the coastline, which creates a suitable time frame to isolate and study the influence of landfall on precipitation asymmetries. Precipitation asymmetry occurs when more rainfall falls on one side of the hurricane; for example, heavier precipitation tends to occur on the right side of a hurricane during the landfall period. Hurricane rainbands that are responsible for producing heavy precipitation form in areas where there is higher moisture near the surface while lighter precipitation forms in areas where there is drier air near the surface. This study focuses on the relationship between land surface moisture and spatial variations of precipitation during the hurricane landfall period by studying observations and model simulations of Hurricane Florence. The model simulation of Hurricane Florence found that more precipitation fell on the right side of the storm, indicating that there was precipitation asymmetry. In order to understand how the precipitation asymmetries form, the model simulation of Hurricane Florence was modified to create two experiments. In the first experiment, the land surface was altered to have a moister land surface, which should cause the hurricane precipitation to be more symmetrical. In the second experiment, the land surface was altered to have a drier land surface, which should cause stronger precipitation asymmetry. However, the results did not match this expectation. Instead, both experiments simulated asymmetrical precipitation with more precipitation falling on the right side of each storm during the landfall period. These results suggest that the modified land surface moisture did not have a significant impact on the formation of precipitation asymmetries. Other factors are therefore suggested to have a more dominant influence on the development of precipitation. Overall, this work can support future studies by ruling out the impact of land surface moisture on a hurricane's precipitation formation during the landfall period.

The behavior of aluminum alloy ship deck panels under the thermal loads of Vertical Take-off-and Landing (VTOL) capable aircraft has become a question of interest with the introduction of new primarily aluminum alloy ships to the U.S. Naval Fleet. This study seeks to provide an initial investigation of this question by examining the transient transfer of heat through aluminum alloy ship deck panels under application of the local heat transfer similar to that of a VTOL aircraft exhaust plume core in typical operation. In this study, a jet stream intended to replicate the key physics of the core of a VTOL aircraft plume was impinged onto the upper surface of aluminum alloy corrugated deck panel test specimen. Temperature measurements are taken via thermocouples on the face of the specimen opposite the impingement to evaluate heat transfer through the specimen. This data is used to assess the effects of variation in the geometry of the corrugation between specimen. Qualitative temperature distributions were also gathered on the impingement surface via thermal imaging. A quantitative assessment of the heat paths for transverse and vertical heat transfer was made based on a thermal resistance model, leading to a conceptual description of predominant heat flow paths in the specimen, specifically weld lines between the corrugation and the flat plate surfaces. In support of this, thermal images indicated that the weld lines provided paths for heat to be pulled away from the center of heat application more rapidly than over the rest of the surface. Ultimately, heat transfer through the specimen was found to be more dependent on the flow conditions than the variations in geometry of the deck panels due to the low variation in thermal resistance across the plate. A recommendation is made based upon this observation to use the deck panels similarly to heat exchanges by adding a small amount of through-deck airflow in the areas of high heat load. / Master of Science

The transport of a species in complex flow fields is an important phenomenon related to many areas in science and engineering. There has been significant progress theoretically and experimentally in understanding active transport in steady, periodic flows such as a chain of vortices but many open questions remain for transport in complex and chaotic flows. This thesis investigates the active transport in a three-dimensional, time-dependent flow field characterized by a spatiotemporally chaotic state of Rayleigh-Be?nard convection. A nonlinear Fischer-Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov reaction is selected to study the transport within these flows. A highly efficient, parallel spectral element approach is employed to solve the Boussinesq and the reaction-advection-diffusion equations in a spatially-extended cylindrical domain with experimentally relevant boundary conditions. The transport is quantified using statistics of spreading and in terms of active transport characteristics like front speed and geometry and are compared with those results for transport in steady flows found in the literature. The results of the simulations indicate an anomalous diffusion process with a power law 2 < ? < 5/2 a result that deviates from other superdiffusive processes in simpler flows, and reveals that the presence of spiral defect chaos induces strongly anomalous transport. Additionally, transport was found to most likely occur in a direction perpendicular to a convection roll in the flow field. The presence of the spiral defect chaos state of the fluid convection is found to enhance the front perimeter by t^3/2 and by a perimeter enhancement ratio r(p) = 2.3. / Master of Science

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Meteorology. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Bibliography: leaves 202-207. / Ph.D.

The data from the new mid-latitude radars of the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) provide new types of challenges and observations. We have developed a method for identifying periods of ionospheric backscatter that increase the number of data and reduce the average velocity in agreement with previous incoherent scatter radar (ISR) studies. Analysis of the data identified by this method clearly shows that different types of ionospheric irregularities are being observed in the mid-latitude region. One type of irregularity is clearly subauroral and equatorward of the plasmapause. Fitting a convection pattern to the Doppler velocities associated with subauroral ionospheric scatter reveals some interesting features. Subauroral convection is shown to be westward thought most of the night, with an eastward turning near dawn. The rotation factor of the ionosphere relative to the rotation of the earth is shown to be ~0.95, which is in good agreement with previous studies of plasmaspheric corotation. / Master of Science

Power electronics is a constantly growing and demanding technical field. Consumer demand and developing technologies have made the improvement of power density a primary emphasis of research for this area. Power semiconductors present some of the major challenges for increasing system level power density due to high loss density and interconnection requirements. Advanced cooling schemes, such as double-sided, forced liquid convection or multi-phase flow, can be implemented with non-wire bond packaging to improve thermal management while maintaining proper electrical performance. Embedded power is one such packaging technology, which provides a compact structure for interface of power semiconductor to fluid flow. The objective of this work was to identify the potential of implementing embedded power packaging with double-sided forced liquid convection. Physics based, electro-thermal models were first used to predict the improvement in heat transfer of double-sided, forced liquid convection with embedded power packaging over single-sided liquid cooled wire bond based packaging. A liquid module test bed was designed and constructed based on the electro-thermal models, which could be interfaced with high power MOSFET based samples implementing various packaging technologies. Experiments were used to verify the model predictions and identify practical limitations of high flow rate, double-sided liquid cooling with embedded power. An improvement of 45% to 60% in total junction to case thermal resistance is shown for embedded power packaging with double-sided liquid cooling for water flow rates between 0.25 and 4.5 gal/min. / Master of Science

Glioblastoma is a deadly brain cancer with discouraging standard of care. New methods like convection enhanced delivery and chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) are promising treatments that can be translated to glioblastoma. In this study, CAR-T cell flow through a hydrogel was explored in the context of in-vitro convection enhanced delivery. A culture method to create large spheroids mimicking tumors from preexisting glioblastoma stem cell lines was fabricated, a convection enhanced delivery system for in-vitro testing was designed, and characterization of the CAR-T cells using the in-vitro system took place. The spheroid culture method was successfully optimized to produce spheroids large enough to act as a sufficient tumor in little time, the in-vitro set-up successfully administered treatment, and CAR-T cells were found to increase their velocities through a medium as their injection velocity increased. It was discovered that the density of the spheroid plays a crucial role in treatment delivery, often times driving how treatment will move through the spheroid. This system can be used in the future studies to test the killing potential of CAR-T cells to a tumor in-vitro. / Master of Science / Glioblastoma is a deadly brain cancer with current treatments that are discouraging at best. New methods must be utilized to aid in patient recovery. Chimeric antigen receptor T-Cells (CAR-T) are a promising treatment that can be used in glioblastoma. In this study, CAR-T cell behavior is defined in the context of in-vitro convection enhanced delivery. A large spheroid, or sphere of cells, mimicking a tumor was created, a convection enhanced delivery system set-up for in-vitro testing was designed, and characterization of CAR-T cell behavior using the in-vitro system took place. The spheroids were successfully cultured to act as a sufficient tumor, the in-vitro set-up successfully administered treatment, and CAR-T cells were found to increase their velocities in a gel as their injection velocity increases. It was discovered that the density of the spheroid plays a crucial role in treatment delivery, often times driving how treatment will move through the spheroid. This system can be used in the future studies to test the killing potential of CAR-T cells to a tumor in-vitro.

Dans l'industrie aéronautique, la génération d'énergie dépend presque exclusivement de la combustion d'hydrocarbures. La meilleure façon d'améliorer le rendement de ces systèmes et de contrôler leur impact environnemental, est d'optimiser le processus de combustion. Avec la croissance continue du de la puissance des calculateurs, la simulation des systèmes complexes est devenue abordable. Jusqu'à très récemment dans les applications industrielles le rayonnement des gaz et la conduction de chaleur dans les solides ont été négligés. Dans ce travail les outils nécessaires à la résolution couplée des trois modes de transfert de chaleur ont été développés et ont été utilisés pour l'étude d'une chambre de combustion d'hélicoptère. On montre que l'inclusion de tous les modes de transfert de chaleur peut influencer la distribution de température dans le domaine. Les outils numériques et la méthodologie de couplage développés ouvrent maintenant la voie à un bon nombre d'applications tant scientifiques que technologiques. / In the aeronautical industry, energy generation relies almost exclusively in the combustion of hydrocarbons. The best way to improve the efficiency of such systems, while controlling their environmental impact, is to optimize the combustion process. With the continuous rise of computational power, simulations of complex combustion systems have become feasible, but until recently in industrial applications radiation and heat conduction were neglected. In the present work the numerical tools necessary for the coupled resolution of the three heat transfer modes have been developed and applied to the study of an helicopter combustion chamber. It is shown that the inclusion of all heat transfer modes can influence the temperature repartition in the domain. The numerical tools and the coupling methodology developed are now opening the way to a good number of scientific and engineering applications.

Cette thèse s'intéresse aux liens entre l'évolution du contenu en eau de l'atmosphère et la formation des précipitations. L'objectif général des travaux qui y sont présentés est d'améliorer la compréhension des mécanismes de formation des précipitations en se basant sur des mesures de vapeur d’eau effectuées principalement par GPS. Une étude statistique originale effectuée à partir de 5 années de mesures (GPS, pluviomètre et capteurs météorologiques au sol, situés sur le campus des Cézeaux, Clermont-Ferrand) a permis de mettre en évidence qu'en moyenne l'augmentation du contenu intégré en vapeur d'eau (IWV) est un précurseur de la formation des pluies, et que les variations de l'humidité dans la colonne atmosphérique toute entière sont pour l'essentiel découplées de celles observées à la surface. En effet, contrairement à l'humidité au sol, l'IWV atteint son maximum en moyenne 20 minutes avant le pic de précipitations. Cela semble indiquer que lorsque les précipitations commencent la condensation devient prépondérante à l'échelle de la colonne atmosphérique toute entière tandis qu'au niveau du sol il y a une forte évaporation. L'étude détaillée des précipitations convectives qui se sont produites sous le vent des Vosges le 18 Juillet 2007 (période d'observation intensive 9a de la campagne Convective and Orographically- induced Precipitation Study - COPS), a permis de mettre en évidence l'apport essentiel du GPS pour l'étude des précipitations convectives dans une région de moyenne montagne. En effet, grâce à une utilisation combinée de mesures radar à haute résolution, d'analyses de surface et de stations GPS (permettant d’observer des structures du champ de vapeur d’eau à petite échelle et haute résolution temporelle, à 2D et 3D), nous avons montré que l'accumulation d'humidité précédait de plusieurs heures l'initiation de la convection et que le déclenchement convectif est favorisé par la convergence du flux d'humidité. Cette dernière est associée à une convergence du vent dans les basses couches, ce qui entraîne un important transport vertical de la vapeur d'eau, observé grâce à la tomographie GPS. La direction du vent en amont du relief s'est révélée contrôler pour beaucoup la localisation des zones de convergence. Le forçage local dû à l'orographie à petite échelle (< 5km) a également été mis en évidence, en complétant les observations par des résultats de simulations numériques à haute résolution. / This thesis focuses on the links between the evolution of atmospheric water vapour content and precipitation formation. The general goal of the works presented is to improve the understanding of the precipitation formation mechanisms using water vapour measurements, primarily made by GPS. An original statistical study based on 5 years of data (from GPS, rain gauge, and other meteorological probes collocated on a platform in Clermont-Ferrand, France) shows that the increase of integrated water vapour amount (IWV) is, on average, a precursor for rain formation. We also show that the IWV evolution is primarily disconnected from the variations in water vapour mixing ratio measured at the surface. Indeed, unlike moisture at the surface, the IWV reaches its maximum on average 20 minutes before the precipitation peak. This could indicate that the condensation dominates in the whole column, while at the surface there is a strong evaporation. The detailed study of convective precipitations which occurred on 18th of July 2007 (Intensive Operation Period 9a of the Convective and Orographically- induced Precipitation Study COPS) on the lee side of the Vosges Mountains shows the significant contribution of GPS measurement for the study of convective precipitations in mountainous areas. Indeed, Thanks to a synergic use of radars, surface meteorological analysis and GPS receivers (which allow the observation of small scale water vapour field features, with a high temporal resolution), we show that the moisture accumulation occurs several hours before convective initiation and we also show that the triggering of the convection is favoured by moisture flux convergence (MFC). This MFC is associated with surface wind convergence leading to a substantial vertical transport of water vapour, which is observed by the GPS tomography. The wind direction on the windward side of the mountains appears to control the location of this convergence zone. The role of local forcing due to small scale orography (< 5km) is also shown, complementing the observations by the results from high resolution numerical model simulations.

Ce travail vise à améliorer la compréhension des transferts des éléments traces métalliques du sol vers les végétaux par une approche modélisatrice mécaniste. Le modèle est basé sur des équations définissant les processus de mobilisation-transport de l’élément dans le sol, eux-mêmes pilotés par la diminution de la concentration en solution sous l’influence de l’absorption d’eau et de soluté par la plante. Le modèle a été éprouvé grâce à des cultures de maïs (12 et 24 jours) et de tabouret calaminaire (3 mois) en conditions contrôlées dans un sol agricole contaminé artificiellement par du CdSO4. L’offre du sol a été évaluée par le biais d’extractions chimiques, par des isothermes d’adsorption ou de désorption, ou encore par les cinétiques d’échange isotopique. Cette dernière méthode, conceptuellement la mieux adaptée a été validée expérimentalement. La demande du maïs et du tabouret a été étudiée en hydroponie grâce au traçage isotopique du Cd. Chez le maïs, l’influx racinaire de Cd augmente linéairement avec le métal en solution. D’autre part, l’influx est (i) 3 fois plus important dans des solutions où la compétition ionique est moindre (faible proportion d’oligo-éléments), (ii) 2,7 fois supérieur chez des plants âgés de 12 j par rapport à des plants de 24 j, (iii) 1,4 fois supérieur lorsque mesuré en 2 h au milieu de la journée comparé à une période de 24 h, (iv) non affectée par l’exposition préalable des plantes au Cd. Chez le tabouret calaminaire, entre 70 et 87 % du Cd racinaire semble localisé à l’extérieur du compartiment symplasmique. Le modèle, très sensible aux différentes fonctions d’absorption racinaire, a sous-estimé de 12 et 18 % les prélèvements des maïs âgés respectivement de 12 et 24 j et sous-estimé le prélèvement du tabouret d’un facteur trois. Les paramètres de l’absorption racinaire restent difficiles à acquérir et expliquent en partie la divergence entre les prélèvements simulés et mesurés / This mechanistic modelling approach aimed to understand the soil-to-plant trace element transfers. The model solves diffusion-convection equation of cadmium (Cd) within the soil under the influence of the depletion of the solution concentration during plant absorption. A growth chamber experiment was conducted with a loamy cultivated soil enriched with CdSO4. Roots and shoots were collected after 12 and 24 days for maize and after 3 months for penny-cress. The soil offer (or phytoavailability) was assessed thanks to chemical extractions, adsorption or desorption isotherms, and isotopic exchange kinetics. The latter method has been validated by the simulations. The plant demand was studied by radiolabelling in hydroponic cultivations for both plants. Maize root influx increased linearly with Cd concentration in the solution. Moreover, root influx was (i) 3 fold higher in low ionic competition solutions, (ii) 2,7 fold higher in 12-days-old plants than in 24-days-old, (iii) 1,4 fold higher in the middle of the day in comparison with the full-day period, (iv) not influenced by Cd exposure during cultivation. Between 70 and 87% of Cd seemed located in the apoplasm of the penny-cress roots. Although the model tested different root absorption functions, the simulations underestimated by 12 and 18% the 12-days-old and the 24-days-old maize uptakes respectively, and by a factor 3 the penny-cress uptake. This divergence is partly due to the difficulties in estimating root absorption parameters, witch need more research