Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics Seminar

University of Michigan

Winter 2007
Wednesday, 21 March, 4:10-5:00pm, 3088 East Hall

Accelerating Liquid Layers

Greg Baker

Ohio State University


Abstract

A pressure difference across a liquid layer will accelerate it. For incompressible and inviscid fluids, it is possible to describe the motion of the surfaces through boundary integral techniques. In particular, dipole distributions can be used together with an external flow that specifies the acceleration. The classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability is an important application. A new method for the numerical approximation of the boundary integrals removes the difficulties associate with surfaces in close proximity as in thin layers.