Development and Implementation of a Data Manager for Hypersonics
Soo Fern Chong · The University of Queensland · 2004
It is a fundamental law of information technology that systems evolve continually and that information requirements will change. Therefore, there is necessary to anticipate the future needs of a system.Presently, the process of manual searching for run description text files for T4 experiments is very tedious and time-consuming. Hence, this thesis outlines the development and the implementation of a Web application (CGI1) program that is capable of accepting queries about the content of run description from the users; delivering queries the PostgreSQL database and returning the result to the usersMuch effort was put into the reviews on the literature relevant to this report. Areas such as the types of experimental data were collected, in what types of format, what are the existing data browsers and what language is suitable for this application, were looked into.The current tunnel data browser is capable of searching for the run description text files and retrieving numerical shot data in graphical form. However, you need to have a reasonable knowledge of the experiment details in order to perform a search. Hence, there is a need to develop another alternative searching technique to complement withit. It was found that Python, a remarkable general purpose language with good modularity and namespaces is best suited for this Web (CGI) program. Therefore, Python programming language was chosen for this application. Thus, the entire CGI program developed by this thesis was written in a combination of Python and HTML. On top of the CGI program, two pieces of supplementary code were written. They were created to upload (via CGI) two specific types of experimental details (run description and flow image data) collected from the facilities. Additional effort has been made to gather, highlight and combine the significant parts of T4 shock tunnel facility into a single set of documentation.Although, the programs developed in this thesis are tested internally and proven to be capable of performing the most basic functions. The actual release of the programs to the public should be done after more experimentally verification of the systems. Therefore, further work is necessary to improve the current functions of both search engines and upload forms, in order to cater for all the researchers around the world.