Hosted by: Alice Cialella

Large-eddy simulation (LES) has emerged as a powerful simulation-based engineering science tool in a broad range of engineering applications involving complex turbulent flows. In my talk I will review computational advances that have enabled the LES of multi-physics flows in arbitrarily complex domains and with flow-structure interaction. I will highlight the predictive power of these algorithms by presenting simulations of: 1) atmospheric turbulence past land-based and offshore wind farms; 2) complex floating structures in the ocean under the action of broadband waves; 3) marine and hydrokinetic energy harvesting devices in real-life waterways, and 4) flow, sediment transport and scour in large rivers during extreme flooding events. I will also discuss the potential of coupling such computational power with field-scale experiments with DNA-based flow tracers to study pathogen and pollutant transport in indoor and outdoor environments.