China - Numerical methods and software for modeling seepage in porous media

In recent years, the fractional calculus has been recognized as a powerful modeling methodology for porous media. The main obstacle for applying fractional calculus to modeling seepage in porous media is the costly computing effort. The fractional derivat ive equations are known to be computationally expensive, since they are non-local in nature and the numerical discretization will produce a full matrix equation. Therefore, innovative numerical techniques are of high importance and will be the major purpo se of this collaborative research endeavor. In addition to developing new numerical algorithms, a robust and adaptive numerical software package is in high demand by the engineering industry. The Institute of Soft Matter Mechanics at the Hohai University , China, and the Department of Scientific Computing at Simula Research Laboratory in Norway aim to join force to tackle the above mathematical modeling problem and its software development. Prof. Wen Chen from Hohai Univ. has rich experiences in fractiona l calculus modeling of complex fluids and will contribute to the mathematical modeling and numerical analysis of seepage via fractional calculus. Associate Professor Xing Cai from Simula will contribute with his expertise in the field of PDE software. The philosophy of coupling together existing software components will be adopted. Moreover, Dr. Cai intends to integrate his experiences in parallel software and large-scale computing into the collaboration project.