Measures of agreement between computation and experiment:validation metrics.
With the increasing role of computational modeling in engineering design, performance estimation, and safety assessment, improved methods are needed for comparing computational results and experimental measurements. Traditional methods of graphically comparing computational and experimental results, though valuable, are essentially qualitative. Computable measures are needed that can quantitatively compare computational and experimental results over a range of input, or control, variables and sharpen assessment of computational accuracy. This type of measure has been recently referred to as a validation metric. We discuss various features that we believe should be incorporated in a validation metric and also features that should be excluded. We develop a new validation metric that is based on the statistical concept of confidence intervals. Using this fundamental concept, we construct two specific metrics: one that requires interpolation of experimental data and one that requires regression (curve fitting) of experimental data. We apply the metrics to three example problems: thermal decomposition of a polyurethane foam, a turbulent buoyant plume of helium, and compressibility effects on the growth rate of a turbulent free-shear layer. We discuss how the present metrics are easily interpretable for assessing computational model accuracy, as well as the impact of experimental measurement uncertainty on the accuracy assessment.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 876365
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2005-4302
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Measures of agreement between computation and experiment: Validation metrics
Case study for model validation : assessing a model for thermal decomposition of polyurethane foam.
Related Subjects
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
ACCURACY
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPRESSIBILITY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DESIGN
Experimental design.
HELIUM
INTERPOLATION
PERFORMANCE
PLUMES
POLYURETHANES
PYROLYSIS
SAFETY
Uncertainty-Mathematical models.
VALIDATION