Numerical Simulations of Turbulent Flows

Julian Domaradzki is a professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and a fellow of the American Physical Society, Division of Fluids Dynamics. His research interests include computational fluid mechanics, environmental and geophysical fluid mechanics, and the physics of fluid turbulence.

Domaradzki and his team focus their efforts on the development and application of numerical techniques to simulate turbulence, using HPCC resources to help numerically solve the nonlinear Navier-Stokes equations governing turbulent flows. The equations are discretized on a fine mesh in three dimensions, ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of mesh points, which are then advanced in time. The data is stored and can be used for various applications, such as predicting weather and pollution-dispersion patterns.

For instance, databases generated from simulations of turbulence for oceanic conditions have allowed Domaradzki’s team to develop an optical method for measuring the mixing properties of turbulence, which are important for the creation of numerical models of ocean circulation and climate. In another application, Domaradzki’s team has simulated a wake flow behind a solid object moving in a stratified flow using a highly accurate, spectral element solver, implemented on the HPCC cluster. Such flows are commonly encountered in oceanic environments, and their evolution is of paramount importance for the remote detection of submarines.

The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research have funded Domaradzki’s work. He has held visiting appointments at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Switzerland, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the German Aerospace Establishment in Göttingen, Germany. He has received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists and the Northrop Faculty Research Award, among other academic distinctions.