Quality Of Computational Results Research Articles

Collaborative Experimental and Computational Study of a Dual-Mode Scramjet Combustor

Advanced computational models of hypersonic air-breathing combustion processes are being developed to better understand and predict the complex flows within a dual-mode scramjet combustor. However, the accuracy of these models can only be quantified through comparison to experimental databases. Moreover, the quality of computational results is dependent on accurate and detailed knowledge of the combustor inflow and boundary conditions. Toward these ends, this paper describes results from a collaboration of experimental and computational investigators. Detailed computational fluid dynamics and finite element analyses were performed throughout the design and implementation of experiments involving a direct-connect scramjet combustor operating at steady state during long duration testing. The test section hardware was designed to provide substantial access for optical laser diagnostics. Measurement locations included the inflow plane and several locations downstream of fuel injection. A suite of advanced in-stream diagnostics were applied, many of which are described in companion papers. Significant results in this paper include measured static wall pressures and temperatures, stereoscopic particle image velocimetry, and focused schlieren imaging. Validated thermal finite element calculations in the scramjet hardware and temperature maps of the flow path boundaries are also presented. Comparison of experimental results with computational fluid dynamics predictions are discussed in a separate paper.

GeneNotes – A novel information management software for biologists

BackgroundCollecting and managing information is a challenging task in a genome-wide profiling research project. Most databases and online computational tools require a direct human involvement. Information and computational results are presented in various multimedia formats (e.g., text, image, PDF, word files, etc.), many of which cannot be automatically processed by computers in biologically meaningful ways. In addition, the quality of computational results is far from perfect and requires nontrivial manual examination. The timely selection, integration and interpretation of heterogeneous biological information still heavily rely on the sensibility of biologists. Biologists often feel overwhelmed by the huge amount of and the great diversity of distributed heterogeneous biological information.DescriptionWe developed an information management application called GeneNotes. GeneNotes is the first application that allows users to collect and manage multimedia biological information about genes/ESTs. GeneNotes provides an integrated environment for users to surf the Internet, collect notes for genes/ESTs, and retrieve notes. GeneNotes is supported by a server that integrates gene annotations from many major databases (e.g., HGNC, MGI, etc.). GeneNotes uses the integrated gene annotations to (a) identify genes given various types of gene IDs (e.g., RefSeq ID, GenBank ID, etc.), and (b) provide quick views of genes. GeneNotes is free for academic usage. The program and the tutorials are available at: .ConclusionsGeneNotes provides a novel human-computer interface to assist researchers to collect and manage biological information. It also provides a platform for studying how users behave when they manipulate biological information. The results of such study can lead to innovation of more intelligent human-computer interfaces that greatly shorten the cycle of biology research.

The discontinuous profile method for simulating two‐phase flow in pipes using the single component approximation

AbstractGodunov‐type algorithms are very attractive for the numerical solution of discontinuous flows. The reconstruction of the profile inside the cells is crucial to scheme performance. The non‐linear generalization of the discontinuous profile method (DPM) presented here for the modelling of two‐phase flow in pipes uses a discontinuous reconstruction in order to capture shocks more efficiently than schemes using continuous functions. The reconstructed profile is used to define the Riemann problem at cell interfaces by averaging of the components of the variable in the base of eigenvectors over their domain of dependence. Intercell fluxes are computed by solving the Riemann problem with an approximate‐state solver. The adapted treatment of boundary conditions is essential to ensure the quality of the computational results and a specific procedure using virtual cells at both extremities of the computational domain is required. Internal boundary conditions can be treated in the same way as external ones. Application of the DPM to test cases is shown to improve the quality of computational results significantly. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.