About us
The group is led by Professor Serafim Kalliadasis and is based in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. We are a dynamic mix of applied and pure mathematicians, engineers, physicists and physical chemists based in an engineering environment and working on a wide variety of problems at the forefront of interdisciplinary applied mathematics and engineering science fundamentals, especially the application of advanced modern mathematical techniques to engineering science and vice versa.
Particular emphasis is given to fluid mechanics, especially complex fluid flows, and to pattern formation driven by hydrodynamic and coupled hydrodynamic and reaction-diffusion instabilities. However, our diverse background and expertise allows us to easily expand into other areas; as a matter fact our interests are not confined to fluid mechanics but extend to several other systems in diverse scientific areas from mathematical biology to chemistry and physics as well as systems at the boundaries between these areas and technological applications from micro-/nano-fluidics to bioengineering science.
Accordion example
Research interests
- Complex systems modelling.
- Linear and nonlinear hydrodynamic stability, transition to spatio-temporal chaos.
- Low-dimensional complexity in interfacial fluid mechanics, dissipative solitons and nonlinear waves in free-surface thin film flows, coherent structures theory for dissipative solitons.
- Perturbation methods, discrete/essential spectra of differential operators, bifurcation and dynamical systems theory, centre/invariant manifold projection, stochastic processes, numerical analysis.
- Micro-/multi-scale fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics of thin films, micro-/meso-scopic dynamics of moving contact lines.
- Chaotic mixing in micro-drops, chemical reactions in chaotic flows.
- Transport phenomena in advection/diffusion systems, wave-induced transport in multi-phase flow systems.
- Hydrodynamic effects induced by chemical wave propagation and chaotic chemical dynamics.
- Wave propagation in spatially distributed excitable media, nerve signal transmission and modelling of demyelination of nerve fibres.
What drives us
We undertake the detailed theoretical analysis of a number of challenging problems at the interface between applied mathematics, applied nonlinear dynamics/pattern formation and engineering science, at the highest level internationally. Some of the very ambitious and exciting projects are highlighted below and on our projects page. These projects are of paramount scientific and technological significance. The suggested solutions represent new avenues of inquiry for which there is no existing theory. Using cutting-edge analytical and computational tools we are trying to develop a generic fundamental understanding of several complex engineering science systems. The ultimate goal is the establishment of rational theoretical frameworks for the study of such systems that will ultimately result in a step-change of their fundamental understanding.
