List of researchers in CAMS working on problems related to Fluid Dynamics: Aubry, Bechtold, Booty, Bukiet, Goldman, Jiang, Kondic, Luke, Papageorgiou, Petropoulos, Siegel, Vanden-Broeck, Wang, Young.

There are ten faculty members within the Department of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) and Center for Applied Mathematics and Statistics (CAMS) whose research is in fluid dynamics or the closely related area of combustion. This group of fluid dynamics scientists is one of the largest contained within a department of mathematics in the United States.

Fluid dynamics is concerned with the motion of liquids and gases. Many beautiful and striking phenomena occur in fluid flows. Familiar examples include the giant vortices shed by airplane wings, the persistent red spot of Jupiter, and the formation of crystalline patterns in solidifying fluids (i.e., snowflakes).

The basic inviscid equations of fluid dynamics have been know for over 250 years. However, analyzing the solutions to these equations is extremely challenging. Mathematicians have played a leading role in the development of analytical, asymptotical and numerical methods for solving the equations of fluid dynamics. Mathematical techniques originally developed to study fluid phenomena have found wide application in other areas of science and engineering. Examples include asymptotic methods, the inverse scattering transform, numerical methods such as boundary integral methods and level set methods, and theoretical techniques to study the qualitative nature of solutions to nonlinear differential equations (dynamical systems, chaos theory). Mathematical research in fluid dynamics continues to drive broad advances in mathematical methods, numerical methods and mathematical analysis.

The fluid dynamics group in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at NJIT has an active research program covering interfacial fluid dynamics, thin films, nanofluidics, electrohydrodynamics, hydrodynamic stability theory, sedimentation, and combustion. A particular focus for six of the faculty members is the study of free and moving boundary problems. These are particularly challenging problems in that partial differential equations have to be solved on a region which is not known in advance, but must be determined as part of the solution. A famous example is the Stefan problem for melting ice or freezing water, but also the dynamics of bubbles, jets, shock waves, flames, tumor growth, crack propagation and contact problems, all can be classified under this heading.

The computational resources available for CAMS fluid dynamics scientists are substantial. CAMS has recently acquired a 134 processor parallel supercomputer cluster. The cluster will be used to obtain numerical solutions to continuum models of fluid dynamic phenomena, for molecular dynamics simulations, the study of flows in granular media, as well as many other complex fluid flow problems.

The rest of this page contains links to examples of the research projects that have been recently considered by the CAMS members. The links to individual faculty web pages that contain more information can be found at the top of this page.

• Booty: Flamelet Models of Combustion

• Bukiet: Front Tracking of Explosive Initiation

• Kondic: Nonlinear Dynamics of Thin Films

• Luke: Sedimentation Theory

• Tilley, Petropoulos, Papageorgiou: Dynamics and Rupture of Planar Electrified Liquid Sheets

• Wang: Multi-Scale and Multi-Physics Modeling Using Immersed Methods

• Young: Effects of Surfactant on Bubble Breakup