Author(s): Clemens Dorfmann; Jakob Steidl; Gerald Zenz
Linked Author(s): Clemens Dorfmann
Keywords: DCP field measurements; River and reservoir hydraulics; Open source software; Analysis and processing of ADCP measurements
Abstract: ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) flow velocity measurements are valuable source data for the determination and analysis of two- and three-dimensional flow patterns in free surface flows. Furthermore due to the high spatial resolution of ADCP data the measurement results can serve as an excellent basis for calibrating depth-averaged 2-D and 3-D numerical models. This paper presents the development and some application examples of the open source ADCP postprocessing framework ADCPtool which allows the processing, analysis and visualization of measurement data. The software is written with the open source multiplatform programming language Python. The ADCPtool can be understood as a set of functions which can be used independently from each other. These functions include the detection and removal of measurement outliers, smoothing and interpolation of measurement data, velocity extrapolation in the unmeasured areas near the water surface and near the bottom, roughness height and shear stress estimation, computation of depth-averaged velocities, different profile projection methods, georeferencing of 2-D and 3-D velocities and the export of the processed data to various third party file formats. The visualization of the intermediate results is a central feature of the ADCPtool which allows the continuous control of the processed steps and the comparison of parameter variations. The further intention is to develop and enhance the program's capabilities with the interested research community and students and to introduce the software in teaching and practical engineering applications.
Year: 2013