University of Central Florida Civil and Environmental Engineering CWR4101 Hydrology Laboratory #1A Programming/ Simpson's Rule

I. PURPOSE

• A. To learn fundamental programming concepts and their application in Hydrology.
• B. To determine the area under a curve using programming methods.

II. EQUIPMENT

• A. Computer with spreadsheet software
• B. Programming Language (BASIC, FORTRAN, C, etc...)

III. PROCEDURE

• A. Plot flow vs. time for given set of data
• B. Determine total volume of flow using spreadsheet and Simpson's rule.
• Using Excel
• Quattro Pro Home Site
• C. Determine total volume of flow by writing a short computer program. The program should accept flow and time as inputs, should give total volume as output. The program can be written in any language. Some suggestions and tutorial links for programming are included below
• Quick BASIC
• Visual Basic
• Fortran Tutorial
• Fortran Page

IV. CALCULATIONS

Simpson's rule uses discrete x axis data (in this case time) to determine the area under a curve. The curve is broken into a number of trapezoids and the area of each trapezoid is determined. These trapezoids are then summed to give the total area under the curve. In this example the curve will be broken into 'n' pieces, i will be used to refer to the value at any point. Q is the flowrate, t is time. Q_i refers to the flowrate at step i, Q_i+1 refers to the flowrate at step i+1. The volume at any point i can be calculated as the average of Q_i and Q_i+1 multipled by the difference in time between steps i and i+1. The area of all steps are summed to give the total area under the curve.

V. DISCUSSION

This laboratory requires a formal write-up. Included should be a printout of the spreadsheet and a discussion of the equations in the spreadhsheet. Also included should be the printout of the computer program and a screen print of the input and output of the program. For those with computer experience this lab will probably be very easy and take very little time, for those with little or no experience it is recommended that you start the lab immediately. Development of this computer experience is more than a good resume item - it is a requirement of work in the field of Hydrology.