A Dynamical Systems Method for Studying Fluid Transport

The purpose of this talk is to describe the application of dynamical systems techniques to study fluid flow. In particular we will focus on flow in the cardiovascular system. It is widely accepted that local flow conditions influence the progression of many vascular diseases. However, little progress has been made on understanding the underlying biomechanical mechanisms. Major obstacles in this area of research include being able to obtain realistic blood flow data, and being able to comprehend the complex, transport-related processes at work. We are using computational fluid dynamics and dynamical systems methods to help overcome these obstacles. CFD, which has been used extensively in the design and analysis of traditional engineering applications, can be coupled with medical imaging to obtain highly-resolved, time-varying, blood flow data. However, especially in the presence of disease, the flow can be complex and traditional methods for interpreting the flow behavior have limited success. Methods stemming from dynamical systems theory enable a unique and powerful understanding of transport in unsteady fluid flow problems. This framework is enabling a more rigorous analyses of the flow physics in many important cardiovascular applications. This talk will provide a brief overview of the methods and applications that we have been working on.

Event Topic

Stochastic & Multiscale Modeling and Computation