Browsing by Author "Black, T. Andrew"
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- Spectral Element Analysis of Bars, Beams, and Levy PlatesBlack, T. Andrew (Virginia Tech, 2005-03-18)This thesis is primarily concerned with the development and coding of a Levy-type spectral plate element to analyze the harmonic response of simply supported plates in the mid to high frequency range. The development includes the governing PDE, displacement field, shape function, and dynamic stiffness matrix. A two DOF spectral Love bar element and both a four DOF spectral Euler-Bernoulli and a four DOF spectral Timoshenko beam element are also developed to gain insight into the performance of spectral elements. A cantilever beam example is used to show how incorporating eigenfunctions for the dynamic governing PDE into the displacement field enables spectral beam elements to represent the structural dynamics exactly. A simply supported curved beam example is used to show that spectral beam elements can converge the effects of curved geometry with up to a 50% reduction in the number of elements when compared to conventional FE. The curved beam example is also used to show that the rotatory inertia and shear deformation, from Timoshenko's beam theory, can result in up to a 28% shift in natural frequency over the first three bending modes. Finally, a simply supported Levy-plate model is used to show that the spectral Levy-type plate element converges the dynamic solution with up to three orders of magnitude fewer DOF then the conventional FE plate formulation. A simply-supported plate example problem is used to illustrate how the coefficients of the Fourier series expansion can be used as edge DOF for the spectral Levy-plate element. The Levy-plate element development gives insight to future research developing a general spectral plate element.
- Temporal Dynamics of Aerodynamic Canopy Height Derived From Eddy Covariance Momentum Flux Data Across North American Flux NetworksChu, Housen; Baldocchi, Dennis D.; Poindexter, Cristina; Abraha, Michael; Desai, Ankur R.; Bohrer, Gil; Arain, M. Altaf; Griffis, Timothy; Blanken, Peter D.; O'Halloran, Thomas L.; Thomas, R. Quinn; Zhang, Quan; Burns, Sean P.; Frank, John M.; Christian, Dold; Brown, Shannon; Black, T. Andrew; Gough, Christopher M.; Law, Beverly E.; Lee, Xuhui; Chen, Jiquan; Reed, David E.; Massman, William J.; Clark, Kenneth; Hatfield, Jerry; Prueger, John; Bracho, Rosvel; Baker, John M.; Martin, Timothy A. (2018-09-16)Aerodynamic canopy height (h(a)) is the effective height of vegetation canopy for its influence on atmospheric fluxes and is a key parameter of surface-atmosphere coupling. However, methods to estimate h(a) from data are limited. This synthesis evaluates the applicability and robustness of the calculation of h(a) from eddy covariance momentum-flux data. At 69 forest sites, annual h(a) robustly predicted site-to-site and year-to-year differences in canopy heights (R-2=0.88, 111site-years). At 23 cropland/grassland sites, weekly h(a) successfully captured the dynamics of vegetation canopies over growing seasons (R-2>0.70 in 74site-years). Our results demonstrate the potential of flux-derived h(a) determination for tracking the seasonal, interannual, and/or decadal dynamics of vegetation canopies including growth, harvest, land use change, and disturbance. The large-scale and time-varying h(a) derived from flux networks worldwide provides a new benchmark for regional and global Earth system models and satellite remote sensing of canopy structure. Plain Language Summary Vegetation canopy height is a key descriptor of the Earth surface and is in use by many modeling and conservation applications. However, large-scale and time-varying data of canopy heights are often unavailable. This synthesis evaluates the applicability and robustness of the calculation of canopy heights from the momentum flux data measured at eddy covariance flux tower sites (i.e., meteorological observation towers with high frequency measurements of wind speed and surface fluxes). We show that the aerodynamic estimation of annual canopy heights robustly predicts the site-to-site and year-to-year differences in canopy heights across a wide variety of forests. The weekly aerodynamic canopy heights successfully capture the dynamics of vegetation canopies over growing seasons at cropland and grassland sites. Our results demonstrate the potential of aerodynamic canopy heights for tracking the seasonal, interannual, and/or decadal dynamics of vegetation canopies including growth, harvest, land use change, and disturbance. Given the amount of data collected and the diversity of vegetation covered by the global networks of eddy covariance flux tower sites, the flux-derived canopy height has great potential for providing a new benchmark for regional and global Earth system models and satellite remote sensing of canopy structure.