Fluid Dynamics
In early years, my interests have focused on the numerical simulation of turbulent
flows with subgrid scale models. Numerical techniques used include discontinous
Galerkin on unstructured meshes, spectral methods, and high order compact methods.
Flows of interest include compressible isotropic turbulence and the interaction
of shocks with organized structures.
In the past few years, I have been involved in research projects that seek to accelerate fluid dynamics codes on graphics processing units. I worked with Dimitri Komatitsch and Roland Martin, both researchers at the University of Pau, in France, to accelerate their sesmic code, based on the spectral element method. Most recently, we have accelerated the code to run on a 192 GPU cluster.
Programming the GPU
In the last two years, I have developed an interest in computer gaming, as a results of a new
course on Game Design that I developed. We use the free Blender software to demonstrate and
construct games. Last year, we began the development of the Spherical Particle Hydrodynamic
algorithms to incorporate real-time particles into Blender's game engine. We are extending
the SPH engine to allow for flocking and flocking within a fluid. The SPH is implemented in
OpenCL in the spirit of open source: Blender runs on all platforms with all graphics cards.