Rebecca Pease

Biographical Sketch

Becca Pease received a B.S. in civil engineering from Tufts University (Go Jumbos!). During her undergrad years Becca was a member of the Tufts Women's Swim Team; she not only practiced and competed with the Jumbo women, but also taught swimming lessons to local children. In addition, Becca interned at several engineering firms: CME Associates, Keyes Inc, and Woodard & Curran. At her most recent internship, Becca contributed to various municipal engineering projects at Woodard & Curran, such as the compilation of a stormwater data bank for a large municipality. Presently, Becca is finishing up a Masters in Environmental Engineering at UMASS Amherst. For her masters thesis she developed a three dimensional computational fluid dynamics model of the Thomas Basin, which has the ability to model stratified temperature conditions. She is looking forward to beginning her new job in the physical modeling group at ENSR's Redmond, Washington office.

 

Presentation

Three-Dimensional Numerical Modeling of the Hydrodynamics and Transport in a Thermally Stratified Reservoir

A three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the Thomas Basin of the Wachusett Reservoir is under development at UMASS, Amherst and funded by the DCR. Basin hydrodynamics and conservative transport were modeled at a homogeneous temperature by Kennedy (2003). Continuing modeling efforts have focused on successfully modeling the flow field with a stratified temperature condition. Both the homogenous and thermally stratified conditions were simulated with the standard k-e model and Fluent 6.0, a CFD modeling software package. The modeling process consisted of developing a computational mesh, investigating the hydraulic properties of the basin through tracer simulations, and validating the model. The model results were validated by comparison with previous 3D CFD modeling results and flow patterns observed during drogue studies. This talk will summarize the development and results of a 3-D CFD stratified temperature model for the Thomas Basin.