ENCN445-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017

Environmental Fluid Mechanics

This occurrence is not offered in 2017

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 20 February 2017
End Date: Sunday, 25 June 2017
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 3 March 2017
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 19 May 2017

Description

Description and modelling of turbulence. Near and far field mixing behaviour. Dispersion in rivers, jets, plumes. Outfall design. Introduction to wave theory, including wave dispersion and forces.

Overview

Environmental fluid mechanics is a special branch of fluid mechanics associated with the interaction of humans with the naturally occurring fluid bodies – the atmosphere, the oceans, estuaries, rivers, and lakes/reservoirs. These fluid bodies impact on human civilisation in a number of critical ways:

• They present significant risk to humans through extreme events. The recent tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011 bear witness to the potential severity of this risk.
•  They provide critical resources, namely water to drink, air to breathe and energy for power generation.

Human beings also impact on these fluid bodies. For example:

•  We modify these fluid bodies through manmade interventions. Drawing water from rivers for irrigation for example, or building a breakwater in a coastal zone.

•  We dispose of our wastes in them. There are many instance of this, for example ocean outfalls for municipal waste and from desalination plants, smokestacks in the atmosphere and discharges from factories into rivers.

Environmental fluid dynamics is a very broad topic and this course can only provide a cursory introduction to it. However by the completion of the course you should appreciate some of the fundamental characteristics of these natural flows – in particular turbulence and wave motion– and you should be able to undertake basic modelling of certain aspects of our interactions with them – in particular the modelling of turbulent mixing in the ocean, rivers and atmosphere.

This course relies heavily on the fluid dynamics concepts of ENCN242 and ENCN342 and some of the mathematics of ENCN304.

The course is split into three self-contained sections. The first introduces turbulent flow and discusses the problem of turbulent mixing in the environment when the environmental fluid is responsible for the transport and dilution of the effluent – this is known as far field mixing. The second focuses on mixing in the near field where the environment plays a more minor role in the  mixing process and the source discharge characteristics are predominant. The third looks at the very broad topic of coastal engineering by providing an introduction to wave dynamics and an understanding of how ocean waves impact on the coastline.

Learning Outcomes

  • At the conclusion of this course you should be able to:

  • Provide a qualitative description of turbulent flow that includes the ideas of a spectrum of eddies of varying sizes, the energy cascade and turbulent kinetic energy dissipation.

  • Understand the basis of Reynolds averaging, why it is required to make headway in solving turbulent flow problems, and the closure problem that results.

  • Explain the concept of an eddy viscosity and describe two turbulence models, Mixing Length Theory and the k-ε model, that are based upon it.

  • Understand how far field mixing can be modelled using the turbulent advection diffusion equation and be able to model such mixing using an appropriate model.

  • Understand the dynamics of jets and plumes and be able to predict the evolution of jet and plume properties with distance from the sources.

  • Apply the concepts of jets and plumes to ocean outfalls and natural ventilation systems.

  • Provide a broad overview of coastal engineering and explain some of the solutions engineers employ to solve coastal engineering problems.

  • Understand the basic behaviour of ocean waves, including dispersion and group and phase velocity.

  • Understand the transformations that ocean waves undergo as they encounter the coast
    and be able to predict the result of this interaction.

  • Analyse real wave data to obtain design wave parameters and analyse some of the
    impacts these waves may have on the coastal environment.

Prerequisites

Restrictions

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Roger Nokes

Lecturer

Mark Davidson

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
final exam 65%
Turbulence project 27 Mar 2015 10%
Jets and Plumes Project 22 May 2015 15%
Coastel Eng Project 05 Jun 2015 10%


The assessment for this paper will comprise two components – three internal assessment projects and the final exam. The internal assessment aims to provide you with the opportunity to work through substantial practical problems, putting into practice the analysis and design skills you have learnt. The final exam will focus more on the theoretical aspects of the course where the solution of complex practical problems is not possible within the constrained time.

1.  You cannot pass this course unless you achieve a mark of at least 40% in the final exam. A student who narrowly fails to achieve 40% in the exam, may still may be eligible for a pass in the course if they have shown consistently high attendance in class and have performed well in the internal assessment items.

2.  All projects must be submitted by the due date. Late submissions will not be accepted. If a student is unable to complete and submit an assignment by the deadline due to personal circumstances beyond their control they should discuss this with the lecturer involved as soon as possible.

3.  Students in this course can apply for aegrotat consideration provided they have sat the final exam.

4.  All projects must be done individually.

Notes

This is a traditional lecture course. Key course material with be presented in lectures and supported through tutorial sessions and electronic resources made available via Learn.

Keeping pace with the lecture material and reviewing it after each lecture will mean that you stay abreast of the course content and will take maximum benefit from the lectures and tutorials. As the class size will be relatively small compared to typical first and second professional courses you will have excellent opportunities to interact with the lecturers on a one to one basis. Take advantage of this.

As this is a final year elective course it is our expectation that you are a motivated and independent learner. You will seek support from the lecturer as well as from digital and physical resources as you see a need. We expect that you will do additional reading on topics that particularly interest you so that you gain additional knowledge outside that directly covered by the lectures.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,038.00

International fee $5,000.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

Minimum enrolments

This course will not be offered if fewer than 5 people apply to enrol.

For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .

All ENCN445 Occurrences

  • ENCN445-17S1 (C) Semester One 2017 - Not Offered
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