Seminar: The Nonclassical Linear Boltzmann Equation and Applications to Particle Transport

Dr. Richard Vasques, The Ohio State University

All dates for this event occur in the past.

E141 Scott Lab
E141 Scott Lab
201 W. 19th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
United States

Current homogenization techniques fail to accurately represent the true behavior of transport processes taking place in certain types of random and heterogeneous systems. These include neutron transport in pebble bed and boiling water reactors, radiative transfer in the Earth's cloudy atmosphere, and even computer-generated imagery (CGI). This talk discusses some of the latest developments in the modeling of subatomic particles interacting with a homogenized random background medium.

The talk starts with a quick overview of kinetic descriptions of physical phenomena. We recap the general physical processes modeled by the standard Boltzmann Transport Equation and pose the problem of modeling transport in a stochastic medium motivated by applications in different fields. We describe a novel model that uses a nonclassical approach to particle transport in systems in which the distribution function for chord lengths between scattering centers is nonexponential. In particular, we discuss how this new theory can properly capture and preserve important physical aspects of the system, enabling better mathematical and computational modeling of transport calculations in heterogeneous random media. Numerical results are presented and the challenges of applying the nonclassical theory in current tools to improve their predictive capabilities are addressed.

About the Speaker

Richard Vasques has recently joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Ohio State University as an Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Program. Before that, he was a Project Scientist in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests lie in the areas of particle transport theory, fission reactor physics, and advanced modeling and simulations. He is particularly focused in the mathematical and computational modeling of transport and diffusion processes in stochastic mixtures, with applications in nuclear reactors, atmospheric sciences, neutron imaging, and volume rendering in computer graphics.

Hosted by Professor Vaibhav Sinha and Professor Raymond Cao