Large Scale Simulations of Brownian Suspensions

Our algorithm follows a Stokesian dynamics formulation by evaluating many-body hydrodynamic interactions using a far-field multipole expansion combined with a near-field lubrication correction. The breakthrough O(N ln N) scaling is obtained by employing a Particle-Mesh-Ewald (PME) approach whereby near-field interactions are evaluated directly and far-field interactions are evaluated using a grid based velocity computed with FFT's. This approach is readily extended to include the effects of Brownian motion. For interacting particles, the fluctuation-dissipation theorem requires that the individual Brownian forces satisfy a correlation based on the N body resistance tensor R. The accurate modeling of these forces requires the computation of a matrix square root R 1/2 for matrices up to order 2 x 105. The cost of this operation via direct methods would be prohibitive and would completely overwhelm the computational cost of the Stokesian dynamics calculation. We have developed a novel iterative approach which exploits the Particle-Mesh-Ewald formulation to perform this calculation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Viera, Marc Nathaniel

Contributors dc:contributor

• Higdon, Jonathan J.L.

• Physics, Fluid and Plasma

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3070465

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82347