Breadcrumb
Dr Lorena Barba
PhD Aeronautics
Office: 2.2a
Department of Mathematics
University Walk, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1TW, U.K.
Telephone:
+1 617 353-3883
Extension: 00
Mail: l.a.barba
http://www.maths.bris.ac.uk/~aelab
Education
- BSc Mechanical Engineering
- Univ. Tecnica Federico Santa Maria (Chile 1989)
- P.Eng.
- Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria (1998)
- MSc Aeronautics
- California Institute of Technology (1999)
- PhD Aeronautics
- California Institute of Technology (2004)
Honours
- Award to Newly Appointed Lecturers in Science, Engineering and Mathematics 2005, The Nuffield Foundation.
- Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award (1999-2000), granted by Zonta International Foundation.
Publications
Fast radial basis function interpolation with Gaussians by localization and iteration (2009)
Claudio E Torres, L A Barba
Journal of Computational Physics vol: 228 , Issue: 14 , Pages: 4976 - 4999
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2009.03.007
URL provided by the author
Characterization of the accuracy of the fast multipole method in particle simulations (2009)
Felipe A Cruz, L A Barba
Int. J. Num. Meth. Engrg. vol: 79 , Issue: 13 , Pages: 1577 - 1604
DOI: 10.1002/nme.2611
URL provided by the author
Research Interests
My main research interests are in fluid mechanics and computational methods in applied science.
In particular, I work with vortex particle methods and their applications for the computation of unsteady viscous flows. I have strong interests in fundamental problems of fluid dynamics, in particular high-Reynolds number flows with concentrated areas of vorticity and vortex dynamics in general. These interests have recently extended to problems in physical oceanography involving eddies in the oceans.
In addition, I am interested in the development of the meshless paradigm for computational methods. The vortex particle method is a meshless method; there are also a variety of new methods being developed that do not rely on the construction of a mesh in the computational domain. This approach holds great promise to allow for computations of highly complex, unsteady flows, flows with moving boundaries, material problems with discontinuities (such as cracks), multi-scale computations, and many other extremely challenging problems.
Research Themes
Sample Research Topic
Emergence and evolution of vortex tripoles
When a strong vortex is subject to a perturbation, the first fundamental question that arises is whether it will return to an axisymmetric shape. In linear theory, it will. But when nonlinear effects are strong, structures like the tripole can emerge.