Tang, Vincent

The AeolianBox is an educational and presentation tool extended in this thesis to

represent the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flow over a deformable surface in the

sandbox. It is a hybrid hardware cum mathematical model which helps users to visually,

interactively and spatially fathom the natural laws governing ABL airflow. The

AeolianBox uses a Kinect V1 camera and a short focal length projector to capture the

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the topography within the sandbox. The captured

DEM is used to generate a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model and project the

ABL flow back onto the surface topography within the sandbox.

AeolianBox is designed to be used in a classroom setting. This requires a low

time cost for the ABL flow simulation to keep the students engaged in the classroom.

Thus, the process of DEM capture and CFD modelling were investigated to lower the

time cost while maintaining key features of the ABL flow structure. A mesh-time

sensitivity analysis was also conducted to investigate the tradeoff between the number of

cells inside the mesh and time cost for both meshing process and CFD modelling. This

allows the user to make an informed decision regarding the level of detail desired in the

ABL flow structure by changing the number of cells in the mesh.

There are infinite possible surface topographies which can be created by molding

sand inside the sandbox. Therefore, in addition to keeping the time cost low while

maintaining key features of the ABL flow structure, the meshing process and CFD

modelling are required to be robust to variety of different surface topographies.

To achieve these research objectives, in this thesis, parametrization is done for meshing process and CFD modelling.

The accuracy of the CFD model for ABL flow used in the AeolianBox was

qualitatively validated with airflow profiles captured in the Trent Environmental Wind

Tunnel (TEWT) at Trent University using the Laser Doppler Anemometer (LDA). Three

simple geometries namely a hemisphere, cube and a ridge were selected since they are

well studied in academia. The CFD model was scaled to the dimensions of the grid where

the airflow was captured in TEWT. The boundary conditions were also kept the same as

the model used in the AeolianBox.

The ABL flow is simulated by using software like OpenFoam and Paraview to

build and visualize a CFD model. The AeolianBox is interactive and capable of detecting

hands using the Kinect camera which allows a user to interact and change the topography

of the sandbox in real time. The AeolianBox's software built for this thesis uses only

opensource tools and is accessible to anyone with an existing hardware model of its

predecessors.

Author Keywords: Augmented Reality, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Kinect Projector Calibration, OpenFoam, Paraview