Front speed enhancement in cellular flows

Sla 1.20 Edifício das Matemáticas
Wednesday, 24 November, 2004 - 14:30

The problem of front propagation in a stirred medium is addressed in the case of cellular flows in
three different regimes: slow reaction, fast reaction and geometrical optics limit. It is well known
that a consequence of stirring is the enhancement of front speed with respect to the non-stirred
case. By means of numerical simulations and theoretical arguments we describe the behavior
of front speed as a function of the stirring intensity, U. For slow reaction, the front propagates
with a speed proportional to U1=4, conversely for fast reaction the front speed is proportional
to U3=4. In the geometrical optics limit, the front speed asymptotically behaves as U= lnU.

Speaker: 

Angelo Vulpiani (Università di Roma 'La Sapienza')