Convert the shear probe data

From Atomix
Revision as of 18:55, 13 July 2021 by Rolf (talk | contribs)

copy&paste from V1 docx

Convert the shear-probe data samples into physical units using the standard equation,

s=Ns22SU2Gγ

where s is the shear signal in physical units of s−1 , Ns are the raw numeric samples (the output of an analog-to-digital converter), S is the calibrated sensitivity of the shear-probe in units of V/(ms−1)2, U is the speed of profiling in ms−1, G is the gain of the differentiator in the electronics of the shear probe in units of s, and γ is the gain of the analog-to-digital converter used to create the samples in units of countsV−1. The above formula assumes that the electronics of the shear probe uses a differentiator to produce a signal that is proportional to the time rate of change of the cross-profile velocity fluctuations.

The sensitivity of the shear probe to shear is proportional to the square of the speed of profiling. Thus, one should set a minimum speed for the conversion of the shear-probe data into physical units. Otherwise, the conversion may produce enormously large and quite unrealistic values. Realistic minimum speeds for the conversion into physical units are 0.05 to 0.1ms−1 because the shear-probe signal is likely to be dominated by electronic noise and the angle of attack will be large (>20∘) even for low levels of dissipation (\citet{Lueck, R.G., D. Huang, D. Newman, and J. Box, 1997, Turbulence measurements with a moored instrument, J. Atmos. Oceanic Techno., 14, 143-161}).

If your instrument does not have a differentiator, then the recorded signal is proportional to the cross-profile velocity fluctuations, say u. You must convert this signal into a the time derivative of the rate of change of cross-profile velocity using the first difference operator using

s=fs[u(n)−u(n−1)]

where fs is the sampling rate of your data and u are the samples of the shear probe that have been converted in velocity fluctuations in units of ms−1.