Bourns Hall

Department of Mechanical Engineering
PRESENTS

Distinguished Speaker
Professor Paul Linden
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, San Diego

Gravity Currents

ABSTRACT
Gravity currents occur in fluids with horizontal density gradients. One example is the sea breeze, driven by the cool, dense sea air which propagates many miles inland (typically to Riverside). Other examples include volcanic avalanches, turbidity currents in the ocean and the flow of toxic or flammable gases from industrial accidents. In this talk I will review the history of the subject which began with a famous paper written by von Karman in 1940, who gave the first prediction for the speed of the current. I will then discuss recent work that discusses, among other things, why water propagating into air is different from air propagating into water - and how these flows are extreme examples of gravity currents.


BIOSKETCH
PFL has been the Blasker Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, UC San Diego since 1998. He graduated from the University of Adelaide and did his PhD at Cambridge University. From 1976-1997, he was the Director of the Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in the Department of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics, at Cambridge.

Wednesday, November 5, 2003
Bourns Hall A265
10:10 a.m.-11:00 p.m.
(Refreshments will be served at 10:00 a.m.)