SMS:ADCIRC Spatial Attributes

ADCIRC Spatial Attributes

Spatial attributes (or nodal attributes) are parameters that can be applied to the entire domain of the simulation in the form of a dataset with values assigned to the nodes of the mesh. ADCIRC supports several such spatially varying input parameters and SMS (starting with version 11.0) includes functionality to assist the user in defining, managing and editing these parameters. With each release of ADCIRC, the list of supported nodal attributes changes. There are several such attributes that are under development and are used by individuals in the ADCIRC community, but are not available in the release version. Therefore, the interface in SMS is a combination of specifically defined attributes to correspond with the standard parameters in ADCIRC and custom attributes to allow for customization and support of attributes not yet included in either the ADCIRC release or the standard list in the SMS interface.

The user can define these attributes in a the Spatial Attributes dialog under the ADCIRC menu. There are a number of predefined attributes that the user can use or they can define their own. Here is a list of the predefined spatial attributes and a brief meaning of each.

In version 50 of ADCIRC, the following predefined nodal attributes are supported:

• primitive weighting in continuity equation – Tau0
• surface submergence state – StartDry
• quadratic friction coefficient at sea floor – Fric
• surface directional effective roughness length – z0Land
• surface canopy coefficient – VCanopy
• bridge pilings friction parameters – BK, BAlpha, BDelX, POAN
• Manning's n at sea floor – ManningsN
• Chezy friction coefficient at sea floor – ChezyFric
• sea surface height above geoid – GeoidOffset
• horizontal eddy viscosity – ESLM
• wave_refraction_in_swan – SwanWaveRefrac (Supported in list of predefined attributes in SMS 11.2)
• bottom_roughness_length – Z0b_var (Supported in list of predefined attributes in SMS 11.2)
• average horizontal eddy viscosity in sea water wrt depth – ESLM
• elemental_slope_limiter – elemental_slope_limiter_grad_max (Supported in list of predefined attributes in SMS 11.2)
• advection_state – AdvectionState (Supported in list of predefined attributes in SMS 11.2)

Please visit the ADCIRC web site to learn more about the meaning of each of the spatial attributes listed above.

How to Use Spatial Attributes in a Simulation

Spatial Attributes are very easy to define and implement into an ADCIRC simulation. First, open the Spatial Attributes dialog from the ADCIRC menu. A dialog with a spreadsheet will appear that shows a list of the names and a comment of each currently defined spatial attribute. From here, you can create a new attribute or delete an existing attribute.

Creating a New Spatial Attribute

1. Click the New button in the Spatial Attributes dialog.
2. In the New Spatial Attribute dialog, select between the Predefined or Custom options. The Custom option will be used mostly for ADCIRC developers only. If Predefined is selected, select an attribute from the list-box and add a comment if so desired. If Custom is selected, type in a name for the new attribute and a comment, and then type the dataset name(s) for that attribute into the spreadsheet. (Before you can define a custom attribute, you must first read in a dataset of values into SMS.) Click the Next button to go to the next page of the dialog.
3. Notice, in the spreadsheet, all of the defined spatial attributes. The first column of the spreadsheet is called Att Dataset, which tells you the title of the attribute dataset. The next column is entitled Default Value. In this column you can define a constant value for the attribute. The last column of the spreadsheet is entitled Initial Values. Here you can choose which dataset the values of the attribute come from. Set the value of the attribute by entering a value in the Default Value column or pick a dataset for it from the Initial Values column. Click Finish to finalize the definition of the attribute.
4. Click OK to exit the Spatial Attributes dialog. Notice that the attribute just defined appears in the Project Explorer under the Mesh Data folder. Its dataset can be selected and contoured for viewing.

Editing Spatial Attributes

To edit a spatial attribute, open the Spatial Attributes dialog. Here you can create a new attribute to replace the one you want to edit. Once you have redefined the new attribute, SMS will ask you if you want to replace the existing one. Click OK to replace the old attribute with the new one that was just defined.

Related Links

• ADCIRC
• Boundary Conditions
• Coverage
• Linear Truncation Error Analysis (LTEA)
• Meshes
• Model Control
• Steering