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Atlanta, GA | Posted: October 1, 2015
Summary Sentence:
Foundational research in turbulent fluid flows headed up by Professor P.K. Yeung has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Full Summary:
No summary paragraph submitted.
Professor P.K. YeungFoundational research in turbulent fluid flows headed up by ProfessorP.K. Yeung has been published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In work supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Yeung, his Ph.D. student X. M, Zhai, and his long-time collaborator Katerpalli R. Sreenivasan of New York University produced the paper entitled “Extreme Events in Computational Turbulence," which appeared in the prestigious journal Sept. 29.
The article describes the results of one of the largest computations devoted solely to the study of small scales. By performing direct numerical simulations of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence on a massive scale, their work has led to a major advance in the general understanding of turbulence small-scale structure, which has important implications for many fields of science and engineering.
Traditionally, phenomenological models of turbulent fluctuations have been used by scientists and engineers to obtain an approximation of the gross properties of turbulent flows, such as aerodynamic drag and mixing rates in an aircraft engine. Yeung's work allows scientists to understand the underlying physical processes better and thereby enhance the potential for devising new and improved models.
"Professor Yeung’s work on extreme behaviors in turbulence is of fundamental importance,” said William R. T. Oakes Professor and school chair Vigor Yang.
"So much has not been well-studied. But Professor Yeung's work has the potential to transform the field."
Yeung's work has been made possible through his long-standing successes in competitive peer-reviewed proposals for major resource allocations at a number of national supercomputer centers, including those supported by the NSF and those operated by the US Department of Energy at its national laboratories.
In particular, numerical simulations reported in the new PNAS paper have required almost 300 million core hours at the Blue Waters Petascale supercomputer at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which received a $200 million grant from NSF to support the computer in 2007.
Computational resources of this magnitude are very expensive, highly sought after, and well beyond the capabilities of a single university campus without major support on a national scale. Yeung's team is one of a select few to make it through a very rigorous selection process for access to these resources.
