Category Archives: Models
FigureGen v.32
Updated 2012/06/05: This version of FigureGen has become outdated, but is maintained on this page for reference. Please click here to be redirected to the newest version.
FigureGen is a FORTRAN program that creates images for ADCIRC output files. It reads sparse (fort.63, fort.64, etc.) and full (maxele.63, maxwvel.63, etc.) output files, grid (fort.14, etc.) files, and nodal attributes (fort.13) files. It plots contours, contour lines, and vectors. Using FigureGen, you can go directly from the ADCIRC input and output files to a presentation-quality figure, for one or multiple time snaps, without having to use SMS.
The following example depicts the significant wave heights during Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico:
Significant wave heights (m) during Katrina (2005) in the Gulf of Mexico.
This program started from a script written by Brian Blanton. I converted it to FORTRAN because I am more familiar with that language, and I added the capability to plot vectors, among other things. But, at its core, FigureGen behaves like a script, and it uses system calls to tell other software how to generate the figure(s).
Conference: WUGNM 2008
Hurricane Storm Surge and Wave Modeling in Southern Louisiana: A Brief Overview
This paper provides a brief overview of several ongoing modeling projects that seek to predict the impact of physical features on hurricane storm surge and waves along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. All of the modeling projects described herein make use of a coupled ADCIRC/STWAVE computer model that is being developed specifically for capturing the inundation dynamics of Southern Louisiana. The projects also make use of a common statistical framework and a suite of 152 synthetic hurricane wind and pressure fields that have been developed to represent the storm dynamics along this region of the coast. This paper provides an overview of the statistical method, the computer models being applied, the physical features resolved by the finite element mesh, the validation exercises, the process for coupling and running the ADCIRC/STWAVE model, and a description of several investigations for which the coupled modeling system is being applied. Preliminary results and conclusions are presented.
FigureGen v.26
Updated 2012/06/05: This version of FigureGen has become outdated, but is maintained on this page for reference. Please click here to be redirected to the newest version.
FigureGen is a FORTRAN program that creates images for ADCIRC output files. It reads sparse (fort.63, fort.64, etc.) and full (maxele.63, maxwvel.63, etc.) output files, grid (fort.14, etc.) files, and nodal attributes (fort.13) files. It plots contours, contour lines, and vectors. Using FigureGen, you can go directly from the ADCIRC input and output files to a presentation-quality figure, for one or multiple time snaps, without having to use SMS.
The following example depicts the wind reduction factors for our hurricane runs in southeast Louisiana:
Directional wind reduction factors in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
This program started from a script written by Brian Blanton. I converted it to FORTRAN because I am more familiar with that language, and I added the capability to plot vectors, among other things. But, at its core, FigureGen behaves like a script, and it uses system calls to tell other software how to generate the figure(s).
Mass Residuals as a Criterion for Mesh Refinement in Continuous Galerkin Shallow Water Models
Mass balance error has been computed traditionally by using conventional fluxes derived from the conservation of mass equation, but recent literature supports a method based on fluxes that are consistent with the discretization of the governing equations. By comparing the mass residuals from these two methods to the truncation errors produced by the discretization of the governing equations, we show that the conventional fluxes produce mass residuals that are more descriptive of the overall behavior of the model, i.e., they are better correlated with truncation error. Then we demonstrate that these mass residuals can be used as a criterion for mesh refinement. In an example using a one-dimensional shallow water model, we demonstrate that, by moving nodes from regions with large mass residuals to regions with small mass residuals, a mesh can be developed that shows less truncation error than a mesh developed by using localized truncation error analysis. And, in an example using a two-dimensional shallow water model, we demonstrate that the computed solution can be improved in regions with large mass residuals through mesh refinement.
Conference: ADCIRC 2008
Hindcasting Winds, Waves and Storm Surge for Hurricane Rita
We presented our Hurricane Rita work at several meetings and conferences in 2007, so we developed a detailed presentation of our results. I decided that it would be a good idea to convert that presentation into a poster, so that we could have some bling in the hallway outside our lab.
