Professor Petros Koumoutsakos
ETH Zurich
Switzerland

Thursday, March 2, 2006
2:00 pm (CT)
5269 Beckman Institute

Abstract

The simulation of the motion of interacting particles is a deceivingly simple, yet powerful and natural, method for exploring physical systems as diverse as planetary dark matter and proteins, unsteady separated flows, and plasmas. Particle simulations of continuum and molecular phenomena can be formulated by following the motion of interacting particles that carry the physical properties of the flow. In this talk we discuss particle methods with an emphasis on their use for multiscale simulations. We present multiresolution particle methods for continuum systems, with an emphasis on fluid mechanics applications, as well as hybrid molecular-continuum simulations for flows past carbon nanotubes.