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February 2012
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Events on Friday 13 March 2009

The index theorem for projective families of elliptic operators
13:10 Fri 13 Mar 09 :: School Board Room :: Prof Mathai Varghese :: University of Adelaide

Boltzmann's Equations for Suspension Flow in Porous Media and Correction of the Classical Model
15:10 Fri 13 Mar 09 :: Napier LG29 :: Prof Pavel Bedrikovetsky :: University of Adelaide

Suspension/colloid transport in porous media is a basic phenomenon in environmental, petroleum and chemical engineering. Suspension of particles moves through porous media and particles are captured by straining or attraction. We revise the classical equations for particle mass balance and particle capture kinetics and show its non-realistic behaviour in cases of large dispersion and of flow-free filtration. In order to resolve the paradoxes, the pore-scale model is derived. The model can be transformed to Boltzmann equation with particle distribution over pores. Introduction of sink-source terms into Boltzmann equation results in much more simple calculations if compared with the traditional Chapman-Enskog averaging procedure. Technique of projecting operators in Hilbert space of Fourier images is used. The projection subspace is constructed in a way to avoid dependency of averaged equations on sink-source terms. The averaging results in explicit expressions for particle flux and capture rate. The particle flux expression describes the effect of advective particle velocity decrease if compared with the carrier water velocity due to preferential capture of "slow" particles in small pores. The capture rate kinetics describes capture from either advective or diffusive fluxes. The equations derived exhibit positive advection velocity for any dispersion and particle capture in immobile fluid that resolves the above-mentioned paradox. Finally, we discuss validation of the model for propagation of contaminants in aquifers, for filtration, for potable water production by artesian wells, for formation damage in oilfields.
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Recent news
Two contract positions are available
As a result of the School's success in securing two prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowships, we now have two limited term positions available, one in Pure Mathematics and one in Statistics.