Abstract
Analysis of Mesh Strategies for Rapid Source Location in
Chemical/Biological Attacks
Currently, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are creating
software that is designed to determine the source of a toxic release
given sensor readings of the toxin concentration at fixed locations in
the building. One of the most important concerns in solving such
problems is computation time since even a crude approximation to the
source, if found in a timely manner, will give emergency personnel the
chance to take appropriate actions to contain the substance.
The manner in which the toxin spreads depends on the air flow within
the
building. Due to the turbulence in the air flow, it is necessary to
calculate the flow field on a fine mesh. Unfortunately, using a fine
mesh for every calculation in this problem may result in prohibitively
long computation times when other features are incorporated into the
model. The goal of this thesis is to reduce the computation time
required by the software mentioned above by applying two different
mesh
coarsening strategies after the flow field is computed. The first of
these strategies is to use a uniformly coarse mesh and the second is
to
use our knowledge of the air flow in the building to construct an
adaptive mesh. The objective of the latter strategy is to use a fine
mesh only in areas where it is absolutely necessary, i.e., in areas
where there is a great change in the flow field.
Joe Petruccelli < jdp@wpi.edu>
Last modified: Thu Apr 29 10:35:56 EDT 2004