Free flow turbines and their efficiency

 

Research and Industry Workshop

(May 06, 2011, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK).

University Campus, Michael Atiyah Building, MAB119 from 09:30

Participation is Free, Everybody is Welcome

 

Most of hydraulic turbines that are presently used for hydropower generation have been developed for installation in water dams across streams. However, dams damage the environment and interfere with fish migration. They also cannot be used for power systems extracting energy from such huge potential sources as ocean currents or lowgrade rivers. Thus, new hydraulic turbines are needed that can operate efficiently in free flow without dams. The principal difference between exploiting high-head and free flow turbines is that the latter need large flow openings to capture as much water masses as possible with low velocities and pressure. It was demonstrated that the efficiency of a free flow turbine is maximal when the resistance is of a free flow turbine rather small and a large part of the flow (~61 percent) goes through.

 

During this workshop we plan to discuss recent development of free flow turbines theory and practice, to compare various constructions of turbines and to analyse possible efficiency of them. The talks about related topics from gas and fluid dynamics, energy systems engineering and mathematical modelling are also welcome

 

 

Research Workshop: The Enigma of Enceladus: Observation and Modeling

University of Leicester, UK, June 19-20 2009

Organizers:


Purpose:
Purpose of the workshop is to bring together leading experts to present and discuss recent results from observations and modelling efforts. Topics include Enceladus' history and evolution, surface properties and processes, heat sources, heat flow, internal structure, chances for liquid subsurface water, perspectives for formation of life, the gas and dust plume, as well as the interaction with the Saturnian environment.

 

Research Workshop: Coping with Complexity:  Model Reduction and Data Analysis, Ambleside, Lake District, UK August 31 – September 4, 2009.

 

The theme of the workshop is deliberately broad in scope and aims at promoting an informal exchange of new ideas and fresh methodological perspectives in the increasingly important, inherently interdisciplinary areas of model reduction, data analysis, approximation and visualization in the presence of complexity.  The goal of this initiative is to assemble a group of people with a wide variety of expertise reflecting the thematically interdisciplinary nature of the workshop, to organize a series of presentations and to encourage fruitful discussions in an informal and casual format, thus circumventing some of the “language barriers” often unnecessarily experienced by researchers representing different disciplines.

 

The broad thematic structure of the workshop is organized around the following list of topics:

 

1)      Theoretical Approaches (deterministic and stochastic): Invariant manifolds, inertial manifolds, perturbation theory, approximation theory, normal form theory

 

2)      Computational and Algorithmic Approaches: Legacy codes and timesteppers, numerical computation of invariant manifolds, invariant grids, coarse-graining approaches

 

3)      Data analysis and approximation techniques: Principal manifolds, dimension reduction methods, data visualization approaches and their applications.

 

4) Fields of Applications: Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, kinetic theory, hydrodynamics and mechanics of continuous media, (bio)chemical kinetics, bioinformatics, particulate systems, nonlinear dynamics, nonlinear control.

 

Research workshop: Mathematics of Model Reduction, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK August 28 to August 30, 2007.

 

The workshop is designed in a manner that aims at the development of a fruitful dialogue amongst the participants, as well as an informal exchange of new ideas, fresh methodological perspectives and novel approaches to the increasingly important problem of Model Reduction that transcends the traditional boundaries of the main fields in contemporary science and engineering.

 

Information about previous Model reduction workshops is available online:

Zurich 2003

Leicester 2005

Proceedings volume of 2005 workshop is still online (temporarily)

 

Research Workshop: Lattice Boltzmann at all-scales: from turbulence to DNA translocation, Centre for Mathematical Modelling, 15 November 2006, 10:00-16:30, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

The lattice Boltzmann (LB) method was developed nearly two decades ago as an alternative strategy for the numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid dynamics. By and large, this task has met with significant success, to the point that, as of today, LB is routinely used for the numerical investigation of a wide range of macroscopic flows, from multiphase flows in porous media, to fully-developed turbulent flows in complex geometries.

 

Distinguished Lecture: Lattice Boltzmann at all-scales: from turbulence to DNA translocation; Sauro Succi. 15 November 2006, 17:00, Lecture Theatre 1, Ken Edwards Building, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

In this Lecture, after a brief review of the basic ideas behind the LB theory, we shall discuss these ongoing developments, and present some very recent applications to micro and nanofluidics, such as drag reduction via superhydrophobicity and hydrodynamic effects on DNA translocation.

 

Research workshop: “Principal manifolds for data cartography and dimension reduction

August 24-26, 2006, Leicester University, Leicester, UK

The problems of Large Data Sets analysis and visualisation, model reduction and the struggle with complexity of data sets are important for many areas of human activity. There exist many scientific and engineering communities that attack these problems from their own sides, and now special efforts are needed to organize communication between these groups, to support exchange of ideas and technology transfer among them. Heuristic algorithms and seminal ideas come from all application fields and from mathematics also, and mathematics has a special responsibility to find a solid basis for heuristics, to transform ideas into exact knowledge, and to transfer the resulting ideal technology to all the participants of the struggle with complexity.

 

The workshop “Principal manifolds for data cartography and dimension reduction,” was focused on modern theory and methodology of geometric data analysis and model reduction. Mathematicians, engineers, software developers and advanced users form different areas of applications will attend this workshop. The Proceeding volume is temporarily available online.

 

Research workshop: Geometry of Genome: Visualization of Structures Hidden in Genomic Sequences. University of Leicester, Leicester, UK, September 22 – 24, 2005.

The post-genomic era is characterized by the knowledge of hundreds of completed genomic sequences. Analysis of these sequences shows that there are common principles of organization of sequence information.  Some of the most powerful methods available for understanding these principles are based on the geometric representation of genome features.  That is, one can study properties of genomic sequences by representing them in multidimensional spaces defined by their local properties. In most cases these representations appear to be structured and organized in a complex hierarchical way. Methods from a variety of scientific disciplines, such as dimensional reduction and data visualization, as well as methods dealing with the geometry of multidimensional spaces help to detect and analyze the structures.  The geometric representation is also an important tool for data mining.

 

Research workshop: "Model Reduction and Coarse-Graining Approaches for Multiscale Phenomena" University of Leicester, Leicester, UK, August 24-26, 2005.

The theme of the workshop is deliberately broad in scope and aims at promoting an informal exchange of new ideas and fresh methodological perspectives in the increasingly important area of model reduction and coarse graining for multiscale phenomena.

Research workshop:

Research workshop: "Invariance and Model Reduction for Multiscale Phenomena," ETH, Zurich ETH-Zentrum, August 26-29, 2003

The main thematic areas of the workshop:
1) Invariant and Inertial Manifolds: Theoretical and Computational Approaches
2) Invariance and Model Reduction: Theoretical and Computational Approaches
3) Specific areas of study represented in the workshop: Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, kinetic theory, hydrodynamics and mechanics of continuous media, (bio)chemical kinetics, nonlinear control theory, nonlinear estimation theory, perturbation theory, classical mechanics, coarse-graining approaches