Nicholas Kevlahan
Professor of Mathematics
Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Adaptive wavelet simulation of tsunami
            Adaptive wavelet simulation of 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
Research interests
Publications
Representative publications
CV
Previous universities
Contact
orcid.org/0000-0001-7929-7668


Research interests

My research has been primarily on the theory and computation of fluid turbulence, with a special interest in numerical methods based on the wavelet transform.

There are numerous problems that remain unresolved in the theory of turbulence, despite more than 100 years of research on the subject. A complete and precise theory of turbulence would be useful in areas as diverse as aerodynamics, combustion, urban pollution modelling, weather prediction and climate modelling.  Although we are still far from being able to formulate  such a theory, much progress has been made in the last few decades.  The aim of my research is to combine several recent discoveries in  order to develop a new approach to turbulence modelling. These discoveries include wavelet transforms (which are used to compress  data and solve partial differential equations), penalisation methods  (which can be used with any numerical method to simulate complex geometries, such as an airplane), and coherent vortices (flow structures that control turbulence dynamics). The general theme of this work has been the interaction between coherent structures (such as vortices or shocks) and the random background in turbulence.  This new approach should allow high Reynolds number (high speed, large size) flows to be calculated in realistic engineering or geophysical configurations.


Representative publications

Pudritz, R.E. & Kevlahan, N.K.-R. 2013 Shock interactions, turbulence and the origin of the stellar mass spectrum. Phil. Trans. R. Soc.  A 2013 371, 20120248 doi:10.1098/rsta.2012.0248

Dubos, T. & Kevlahan, N.K.-R. 2013 A conservative adaptive wavelet method for the shallow-water equations on staggered grids. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 139, 1997-2020 doi:10.1002/qj.2097

Farazmand, M.M., Kevlahan, N.K.-R. & Protas, P. 2011 Controlling the dual cascade of two-dimensional turbulence. J. Fluid Mech. 668, 202-222.

Mehra, M. & Kevlahan, N.K.-R. 2008 An adaptive wavelet collocation method for the solution of partial differential equations on the sphere. J. Comput. Phys. 227, 5610-5632.

Kevlahan, N.K.-R. 2007 Three-dimensional Floquet stability analysis of the wake in cylinder arrays. J. Fluid Mech. 592, 79-88.

Vasilyev, O.V., de Stefano, G., Goldstein, D. & Kevlahan, N.K.-R. 2008 Lagrangian dynamic SGS model for Stochastic Coherent Adaptive Large Eddy Simulation J. Turbulence 9, Art. No. N11.

Kevlahan, N.K.-R. & Vasilyev, O.V. 2005 An adaptive wavelet collocation method for fluid-structure interaction at high Reynolds numbers. SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 26(6), 1894-1915.



Previous universities

CMLA, Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, France
LMD, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
DAMTP, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Physics, University of British Columbia, Canada


Contact

Nicholas Kevlahan
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
McMaster University
Hamilton L8S 4K1
CANADA

tel:  (1) 905 525 9140 x23412
fax: (1) 905 522 0935

email:  kevlahan@mcmaster.ca
office: Hamilton Hall - HH324


Last updated 2016-09-28