Conference of Prof.A.Fasano

[prof. Maura UGHI]

  On Tuesday March 30th, at 2 pm Prof.Antonio 
Fasano , Università di Firenze,will give a talk 
in  Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica of 
the University of Trieste, v.Valerio 12/1,Aula 
Seminari ,III floor.
TITLE: " A MULTISCALE APPROACH TO COMPLEX FLOWS IN POROUS MEDIA"
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ABSTRACT:
It is well known that homogenization techniques 
have been successfully applied to derive the 
macroscopic laws (for instance Darcy’s law) 
governing the flow of a fluid through a porous 
material. The basis idea is to write the flow 
equations (e.g. Navier-Stokes) at the pore scale 
(normally in some idealized geometry), and then 
to exploit the presence of a small parameter 
(typically the ratio pore diameter/medium 
thickness) and some averaging procedure to pass 
from the microscopic equations to equations 
expressed in terms of macroscopic quantities.
In this talk we want to apply that kind of 
approach to some complex case, particularly 
important to applications. We will deal with two 
main classes:
•	Flows with mass exchange between the solid and the liquid.
•	Filters.
In both cases we will just consider 
incompressible Newtonian fluids. The final 
conclusion is that Darcy’s law is generally not 
applicable.
Mass exchange takes place for instance in erosion 
or phase change processes, but also in soil 
remediation techniques in which a biofilm is 
allowed to grow on the soil grains. A common 
feature of the microscopic formulation of the 
flows in this class is the necessity of solving 
free boundary problems involving nonlocal 
conditions.
For the case of filters the emphasis will be on 
the importance of slip velocity at the 
solid/liquid interface, which seems to be still a 
debatable question among the engineers.


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prof. Maura UGHI 
tel.  039-40-5582627
Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica                fax.  039-40-5582636
Universita' di Trieste 
E-Mail ughi at units.it
34100 Trieste, Italia
Via Valerio 12/1
sito web   http://www.dmi.units.it/~ughi/