Thu, 15 Jun 2006

14:00 - 15:00
Comlab

Numerical simulation of flows with strong density imhomogeneities

Dr Jocelyn Etienne
(University of Cambridge)
Abstract

Strong horizontal gradients of density are responsible for the occurence of a large number of (often catastrophic) flows, such as katabatic winds, dust storms, pyroclastic flows and powder-snow avalanches. For a large number of applications, the overall density contrast in the flow remains small and simulations are carried in the Boussinesq limit, where density variations only appear in the body-force term. However, pyroclastic flows and powder-snow avalanches involve much larger density contrasts, which implies that the inhomogeneous Navier-Stokes equations need to be solved, along with a closure equation describing the mass diffusion. We propose a Lagrange-Galerkin numerical scheme to solve this system, and prove optimal error bounds subject to constraints on the order of the discretization and the time-stepping. Simulations of physical relevance are then shown.

Thu, 15 Jun 2006
12:00
SR1

TBC

Christian Gonzalez-Martinez
(Oxford)
Fri, 09 Jun 2006
16:30
L2

Mathematics, mechanics and motility

Prof L Mahadevan
(Harvard, USA)
Abstract

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Fri, 09 Jun 2006
10:00
DH 3rd floor SR
Thu, 08 Jun 2006
16:30
DH 1st floor SR

A teleparallel reformulation of Dirac's equation or quantum electrodynamics for dummies

Dimitri Vassiliev
(University of Bath)
Abstract
The price we pay for this simplicity is that the change of variable
spinor --> coframe
makes the Dirac equation nonlinear. The morale of the talk is that, in our opinion, it is more natural to view the Dirac equation as a nonlinear equation for the unknown coframe rather than a linear equation for the unknown spinor.
Thu, 08 Jun 2006

14:00 - 15:00
Comlab

Modelling cerebrospinal fluid flow through the brain and hydrocephalus

Dr Ian Sobey
(University of Oxford)
Abstract

An integral part of the brain is a fluid flow system that is separate from brain tissue and the cerebral blood flow system: cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced near the centre of the brain, flows out and around the brain, including around the spinal cord and is absorbed primarily in a region between the brain tissue and the skull. Hydrocephalus covers a broad range of anomalous flow and pressure situations: the normal flow path can become blocked, other problems can occur which result in abnormal tissue deformation or pressure changes. This talk will describe work that treats brain tissue as a poroelastic matrix through which the CSF can move when normal flow paths are blocked, producing tissue deformation and pressure changes. We have a number of models, the simplest treating the brain and CSF flow as having spherial symmetry ranging to more complex, fully three-dimensional computations. As well as considering acute hydrocephalus, we touch on normal pressure hydrocephalus, idiopathic intracranial hypertension and simulation of an infusion test. The numerical methods used are a combination of finite difference and finite element techniques applied to an interesting set of hydro-elastic equations.

Thu, 01 Jun 2006

14:00 - 15:00
Comlab

Recent activities in automatic differentiation and beyond

Prof Christian Bischof
(RWTH)
Abstract

In this talk, we report on recent activities in the development of automatic differentiation tools for Matlab and CapeML, a common intermediate language for process control, and highlight some recent AD applications. Lastly, we show the potential for parallelisation created by AD and comment on the impact on scientific computing due to emerging multicore chips which are providing substantial thread-based parallelism in a "pizza box" form factor.