Ground vehicles, both on roads or on rail, are sensitive to crosswinds and the handling, travelling speeds or in some cases, safety can be affected. Full modelling of the crosswind stability of a vehicle is a demanding task as the nature of the disturbance, the wind gust, is complex and the aerodynamics, vehicle dynamics and driver reactions interact with each other.  One of the objectives of this thesis, is to assess the aerodynamic response of simplified ground vehicles under sudden strong crosswind disturbances by using an advanced turbulence model. In the aerodynamic simulations, time-dependant boundary data have been used to introduce a deterministic wind gust model into the computational domain.  This thesis covers the implementation of such gust models into Detached-Eddy Simulations (DES) and assesses the overall accuracy. Different type of grids, numerical setups and refinements are considered. Although the overall use of DES is seen suitable, further investigations can be foreseen on more challenging geometries.  Two families of vehicle models have been studied. The first one, a box-like geometry, has been used to characterize the influence of the radius of curvature and benefited from unsteady experimental data for comparison. The second one, the Windsor model, has been used to understand the impact of the different rear designs. Noticeably, the different geometries tested have exhibited strong transients in the loads that can not be represented in pure steady crosswind conditions. The static coupling between aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics simulations enhances the comparisons of the aerodynamic designs. Also, it shows that the motion of the centre of pressure with respect the locations of the centre of gravity and the neutral steer point, is of prime interest to design vehicles that are less crosswind sensitive. Recommendations on the future work on crosswind sensitivity for ground vehicles are proposed at the end of this thesis. / <p>QC 20111206</p> / crosswind stability and unsteady aerodynamics

In order to improve people’s living situation and decrease the use of fossil energy in the world, researchers’ attention has been focused on the energy side of the building sector. Especially single family houses in the Nordic countries Norway, Sweden and Finland have been given attention in the Increasing Energy Efficiency in Buildings (IEEB) project, with the purpose of increasing energy efficiency in buildings. In the project presented in this report, this has been studied by simulating a low energy single family house at different locations in Scandinavia, and applying the various national building codes to the house to see how it would match the energy requirements. The simulated locations included the different climates in Helsinki, Oulu (Finland), Oslo, Narvik (Norway), Piteå, Umeå, Karlstad, Borlänge, Stockholm and Kalmar (Sweden). The house fulfilled almost all the national energy requirements with more or less margin because of its low energy use. A comparison with actual measurements of the house did not match as good, because of uncertainty in measurement methods and climate aspects. The national building codes and climate in the Nordic countries turned out to be similar enough for a coordination of the building codes to be possible in the future.

Computer simulation is now increasingly being used for design and performance evaluation of communication systems. When simulating a mobile wireless channel for communication systems, it is usually assumed that the fading process is a random variate with Rayleigh distribution. The random variates of the fading process should also have other properties, like autocorrelation, spectrum, etc. At present, there are a number of methods to generate the Rayleigh fading process, some of them quite recently proposed. Due to the use of different Rayleigh fading generators, different simulations of the same communication system yield different results. Three methods, viz., the Jakes method, the IDFT method and the filtering WGN method, have been studied, simulated and compared based on the Rayleigh fading process' properties. Various communication systems have been simulated using the Rayleigh fading generators and the difference in the results, if any, have been analyzed. The research studies the different Rayleigh fading generators and compares them using the properties of the Rayleigh fading channel. It is found that the IDFT method and the filtering WGN method generate processes that have properties very close to the ideal Rayleigh fading process.

An understanding of the shape and nature of galaxy density profiles remains a major challenge to galaxy structure studies. The physical mechanisms thought to control these profiles include star formation rates and dynamical interactions, but we focus in this thesis on the contribution of dynamical parameters associated with the dark and baryonic matter. We follow the evolution of mass density profiles, and investigate the development of a truncation radius. Using GADGET-2, an N-body/SPH code with a prescription for star formation and feedback, and the SHARCNET computational facilities, we have generated over 200 galaxy models covering a full range of structural parameters. The galaxy models have a minimum of 1.4 million particles and most are evolved over a period of 10 Gyr. We find that the evolution of the galaxy mass density profile is controlled by the ratio of the disk mass fraction, $m_{d}$, to the halo spin parameter, $\lambda$. The strength of the two-component structure in disk profiles and speed at which this structure develops, is directly proportional to $m_{d}/\lambda$. While the development of a two-component profile is coupled to bar formation, not all barred galaxies develop a two-component profile. We also show that the slope of the outer profile is in close agreement with that of the initial profile and remains stable over time, whereas the inner profile slope evolves considerably. This result will greatly improve comparisons of observed with predicted measures of galaxy density profiles. Our galaxy database is the largest of its kind and a valuable resource for many potential galaxy structural studies. We conclude with a list of future investigations based on our study and new database. / Thesis (Master, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2007-07-30 14:46:24.568

This dissertation addresses the synthesis of oriented mesoporous ceramic films by evaporation induced self-assembly of surfactants and ceramic precursors in films dip coated from ethanol-rich sols. First, the kinetics of silica polycondensation in surfactant templated sol-gel films is studied both before and after deposition using infrared spectroscopy. These observations reveal an induction time (with minimal condensation rate) before curing begins in certain surfactant-templated silica films, which can be utilized to perform post-synthesis modification. This induction time is maximized at high humidity, and by long nonionic surfactant headgroups (rather than, for instance, a trimethylammonium headgroup). The second part of the dissertation addresses lattice Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the effects of confinement on the 2D hexagonally close packed (HCP) phase formed by 60 vol% surfactant in a polar solvent. The effects of size and type of confining geometry (slit, cylindrical and spherical cavities) and of surface chemistry are simulated. The HCP mesophase orients orthogonal to chemically neutral surfaces which attract both head and tail of the surfactant equally. Novel mesophase geometries are simulated including radially oriented micelles, concentric helices, and concentric porous shells. Utilizing fundamental insights from the kinetics and MC studies, the third part of the dissertation describes the synthesis of silica films with orthogonally tilted HCP mesophase on chemically neutral surfaces. Crosslinking a random copolymer of polyethylene oxide (PEO)-polyproplyene oxide (PPO) on glass slides results in chemically neutral surfaces for the PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymer template (P123) used here. The orthogonal orientation of the HCP channels is confirmed using advanced x-ray scattering techniques and electron microscopy. The final part of the dissertation discusses applications of ceramic films with orthogonally tilted (ortho-) HCP mesophase. Silica membranes with ortho-HCP pores are prepared on porous alumina supports, and show permeability of ethanol orders of magnitude greater than films with parallel-oriented HCP channels. Size-selective filtration of gold nanoparticles confirms the absence of any nanoscale cracks in the membranes. For a second application, we prepare titania films with ortho-HCP mesopores. Careful crystallization of the films followed by spinning on an organic hole conducting polymer (P3HT) leads to active bulk heterojunction solar cells.

The term Virtual Patient (VP) refers to the use of virtual characters which embody patients in a virtual environment. They are implemented in computer simulations to create realistic clinical encounters. VPs have been used successfully in health education to promote and foster clinical communication skills. Additionally, computer simulations offer the advantage of being standardized, safe, repeatable, and do not require as much resources as role-play simulations which rely on actors. This thesis addresses the design and evaluation of a VP-based system aimed for clinical trainees, and uses the field of audiology as a case study. The system is designed to simulate real client encounters and allows students to practice using a standard set of procedures that they have to master in their profession. A wide range of VPs have been implemented for this purpose. The system was evaluated with audiology students, reinforcing the ecological validity of the research. The design of the system was guided by an iterative process of implementation, usability testing, and experiments focusing on students' learning outcomes. The Clinical Audiology Simulator (CAS) was evaluated during five experiments, assessing students learning gains following exposure to the CAS. Learning gains have been assessed through the use of role-play simulations and paper assessments. The procedures evaluated are clinical history taking, pure tone audiometry, and speech audiometry. A further experiment assessed the impact of additional formative feedback on students learning gains, using the pure tone audiometry procedure as an example. The results of these experiments suggest that the system has a great potential to foster students learning, with measurable gains in some of these procedures. They also indicate that feedback and its delivery take an important role in this process. This thesis elaborates how VP-based simulations can reinforce young clinicians' ability to learn procedural skills. I highlight some of the challenges a researcher faces in designing and evaluating such systems, focusing on the implementation of interaction scripts for the VPs, the assessment of learning gains and transfer of skills, and the evaluation of computer simulations as part of a curriculum. VPs have the potential to promote clinical trainees' learning of skills, and to provide students with more opportunities for safe practice in a field where beginning trainees often have few opportunities for actual hands on experience.

The effects of the microstructure of metal films on electric component performance and longevity have become increasingly important with the recent advances in nanotechnology. Depending on the application of the metal films and interconnects, certain microscopic structures and properties are preferred over others. A common method to produce these films and interconnects is through electrodeposition. As with every process, the ability to control the end product requires a detailed understanding of the system and the effect of operating conditions on the resulting product. To address this problem, a three-dimensional on-lattice kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) method is developed to conduct atomistic simulations of single crystal and polycrystalline metal electrodeposition. The method utilizes the semi-empirical multi-body embedded-atom method (EAM) potential that accounts for the cohesive forces in a metallic system. The resulting computational method, KMC-EAM, enables highly descriptive simulations of electrodeposition processes to be performed over experimentally relevant scales. In this work, kinetically controlled copper electrodeposition onto single crystal copper under galvanostatic direct-current conditions and polycrystalline copper under potentiostatic direct-current conditions is modelled using the aforementioned KMC method. Four types of surface processes are considered during electrodeposition: deposition, dissolution, surface diffusion and grain boundary diffusion. The equilibrium microstructures from single crystal experiments were validated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations through the comparison of energy per atom and average coordination number. The growth mode observed is in agreement with experimental results for the same orientation of copper. MD simulation relaxes constraints and approximations resulting from the use of KMC. Results indicate that collective diffusion mechanisms are essential in order to accurately model the evolution of coating morphology during electrodeposition. In the polycrystalline simulations, the effect of surface energy is taken into account in the propensities of deposition and dissolution. Sub-surface grain volume measurements were obtained from simulation results and the grain volume evolution with time is in agreement with both qualitative observations based on the deposit morphology and surface energy calculations. Simulations of polycrystalline deposition agree with findings from experimental studies that the evolution of the root-mean-squared roughness of the deposit during the early stages of deposition follows a power law relationship with respect to time $\approx t^{n}$. Furthermore, the power law exponent on time is determined to be $n \approx 0.5$, also in agreement with the experimental values reported in the literature.

In principle a quantum system could be used to simulate another quantum system. The purpose of such a simulation would be to obtain information about problems which are difficult to simulate on a classical computer due to the exponential increase of the Hilbert space with the size of the system, and which cannot be readily measured or controlled in an experiment. A quantum simulator is, however, an open quantum system that will interact with the surrounding environment, which in this case are other particles in the system, and will be implemented using imperfect controls, making it subject to noise. It has been suggested that noise does not need to be controlled to the same extent as it must be for general quantum information processing. However, the effects of noise in quantum simulations are not well understood and how best to treat them in most cases is not known. In the present work we study an existing quantum algorithm for the simulation of the one-dimensional Fano-Anderson model. This algorithm was proposed for a liquid-state NMR device. We examine models of noise in the evolution using different initial states in the original model. We also add interacting spins to simulate realistic situation where an environment of spins is present. We find that states which are entangled with their environment, and sometimes correlated but not necessarily entangled have an evolution which is described by maps which are not completely positive. We discuss the conditions for this to occur and also the implications.

Dans le contexte du calcul scientique, l'équilibrage de la charge est un problème crucial qui conditionne la performance des simulations numériques parallèles. L'objectif est de répartir la charge de travail entre un nombre de processeurs donné, afin de minimiser le temps global d'exécution. Une stratégie populaire pour résoudre ce problème consiste à modéliser la simulation à l'aide d'un graphe et à appliquer des algorithmes de partitionnement. En outre, les simulations numériques tendent à se complexifier, notamment en mixant plusieurs codes représentant des physiques différentes ou des échelles différentes. On parle alors de couplage de codes multi-physiques ou multi-échelles. Dans ce contexte, le problème de l'équilibrage de charge devient également plus difficile, car il ne s'agit plus d'équilibrer chacun des codes séparément, mais l'ensemble de ces codes pris dans leur globalité. Dans ce travail, on propose de resoudre ce problème en utilisant le modèle de partitionnement à sommets fixes qui pourrait représenter efficacement les contraintes supplémentaires imposées par les codes couplés (co-partitionnement). Nous avons donc développé un algorithme direct de partitionnement de graphe qui gère des sommets fixes. L'algorithme a été implémenté dans le partitionneur Scotch et une série d'expériences ont été menées sur la collection des graphes DIMACS. Ensuite nous avons proposé trois algorithmes de co-partitionnement qui respectent les contraintes issues des codes couplés respectifs. Nous avons egalement validé nos algorithmes par une étude expérimentale en comparant nos méthodes aux strategies actuelles sur des cas artificiels ainsi que sur des codes réels couplés. / Load balancing is an important step conditioning the performance of parallel applications. The goal is to distribute roughly equal amounts of computational load across a number of processors, while minimising interprocessor communication. A common approach to model the problem is based on graph structures and graph partitioning algorithms. Moreover, new challenges involve the simulation of more complex physical phenomena, where different parts of the computational domain exhibit different physical behavior. Such simulations follow the paradigm of multi-physics or multi-scale modeling approaches. Combining such different models in massively parallel computations is still a challenge to reach high performance. Additionally, traditional load balancing algorithms are often inadequate, and more sophisticated solutions should be explored. In this thesis, we propose new graph partitioning algorithms that balance the load of such simulations, refered to as co-partitioning. We formulate this problem with the use of graph partitioning with initially fixed vertices which we believe represents efficiently the additional constraints of coupled simulations. We have therefore developed a direct algorithm for graph partitioning that manages successfully problems with fixed vertices. The algorithm is implemented inside Scotch partitioner and a series of experiments were carried out on the DIMACS graph collection. Moreover we proposed three copartitioning algorithms that respect the constraints of the respective coupled codes. We finally validated our algorithms by an experimental study comparing our methods with current strategies on artificial cases and on real-life coupled simulations.

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