EVENT DETAILS
Simulating Lava Flows and Offshore Structures with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
Abstract: Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a Lagrangian mesh-free method that, originally developed for astrophysics applications, has become popular in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics. SPH is able to deal with complex flows and their features, including non-Newtonian rheologies, free surfaces, thermal dependencies, phase transitions, large fluid deformations, etc. SPH is an intrinsically parallel method that allows computation on high-performance parallel computing hardware providing advantages in terms of simulation time. We will talk about GPUSPH, an implementation of the SPH method that runs on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). We will discuss some applications of GPUSPH, starting with a very complex fluid: lava. The combination of a free surface, natural topography, phase transitions, and the formation of structures such as levees and tunnels makes the modeling and simulation of lava flows an extremely challenging task for CFD. A semi-implicit integration scheme is introduced to allow the simulation of very high-viscosity fluids ensuring robustness and reducing simulation times. We will show other applications of GPUSPH, including coastal engineering, for which we will see a two-way coupling of SPH and FEM for the simulation of wave loading on flexible offshore structures.
Bio: Vito Zago is a Post-Doctoral Researcher, who arrived at Northwestern University in 2019. His research interest is in Computational Dynamics, focusing on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method for the simulation and study of fluid-solid interaction and complex fluids. His main contributions concern the numerical stability of the SPH method in applications to stiff equations, as in the case of highly-viscous fluids, including the development of specific integration schemes, and the implementation of mechanical and thermal boundary condition models. He received his master degree in Automation Engineering and Control of Complex Systems in 2015 from University of Catania, Italy, where he received, in conjunction with the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), his Ph.D. in 2019.
TIME Wednesday January 15, 2020 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
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CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney-acott@northwestern.edu
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering