My main research interest has been in laminar fluid mechanics, particularly unsteady flows which separate and form vortices. The main use I have made of unsteady laminar flows has been in devices which handle blood (since blood cannot be subjected to over-vigorous mixing). Over time I have been involved with design of artificial oxygenators, dialysers and blood filters.
Of course a central feature of separated flow is the non-linear interaction between vorticity and velocity. This is so difficult to deal with analytically that the two main techniques we have to study unsteady separation are observation of real fluids and computation of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. I have used both these techniques but it is particularly the latter which dominates my present research interests. Any computation of non-linear PDE's can also lead to non-linear dynamics and that in turn can lead to real or artificial occurence of bifurcation or chaos. So the study of fluid mechanics can lead to fairly wide interests in applied mathematics, computation and chemical engineering.
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Last modified September 2016