Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Physics

Sixteen Years Of Collaborative Learning Through Active Sense-Making In Physics (Clasp) At Uc Davis, Wendell Potter, David Webb, Cassandra Paul, Emily West, Mark Bowen, Brenda Weiss, Lawrence Coleman, Charles De Leone Jan 2014

Sixteen Years Of Collaborative Learning Through Active Sense-Making In Physics (Clasp) At Uc Davis, Wendell Potter, David Webb, Cassandra Paul, Emily West, Mark Bowen, Brenda Weiss, Lawrence Coleman, Charles De Leone

Faculty Publications

This paper describes our large reformed introductory physics course at UC Davis, which bioscience students have been taking since 1996. The central feature of this course is a focus on sense-making by the students during the five hours per week discussion/labs in which the students take part in activities emphasizing peer-peer discussions, argumentation, and presentations of ideas. The course differs in many fundamental ways from traditionally taught introductory physics courses. After discussing the unique features of CLASP and its implementation at UC Davis, various student outcome measures are presented showing increased performance by students who took the CLASP course compared …


Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell Jan 2014

Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell

Alejandro Garcia

We formulate low Mach number fluctuating hydrodynamic equations appropriate for modeling diffusive mixing in isothermal mixtures of fluids with different density and transport coefficients. These equations eliminate the fast isentropic fluctuations in pressure associated with the propagation of sound waves by replacing the equation of state with a local thermodynamic constraint. We demonstrate that the low Mach number model preserves the spatio-temporal spectrum of the slower diffusive fluctuations. We develop a strictly conservative finite-volume spatial discretization of the low Mach number fluctuating equations in both two and three dimensions. We construct several explicit Runge-Kutta temporal integrators that strictly maintain the …


Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell Jan 2014

Low Mach Number Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Of Diffusively Mixing Fluids, Aleksandar Donev, Andy J. Nonaka, Yifei Sun, Thomas Fai, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell

Faculty Publications

We formulate low Mach number fluctuating hydrodynamic equations appropriate for modeling diffusive mixing in isothermal mixtures of fluids with different density and transport coefficients. These equations eliminate the fast isentropic fluctuations in pressure associated with the propagation of sound waves by replacing the equation of state with a local thermodynamic constraint. We demonstrate that the low Mach number model preserves the spatio-temporal spectrum of the slower diffusive fluctuations. We develop a strictly conservative finite-volume spatial discretization of the low Mach number fluctuating equations in both two and three dimensions. We construct several explicit Runge-Kutta temporal integrators that strictly maintain the …


On The Accuracy Of Explicit Finite-Volume Schemes For Fluctuating Hydrodynamics, Aleksandar Donev, Eric Vanden-Eijnden, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell Jan 2010

On The Accuracy Of Explicit Finite-Volume Schemes For Fluctuating Hydrodynamics, Aleksandar Donev, Eric Vanden-Eijnden, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell

Alejandro Garcia

This paper describes the development and analysis of finite-volume methods for the Landau–Lifshitz Navier–Stokes (LLNS) equations and related stochastic partial differential equations in fluid dynamics. The LLNS equations incorporate thermal fluctuations into macroscopic hydrodynamics by the addition of white noise fluxes whose magnitudes are set by a fluctuation-dissipation relation. Originally derived for equilibrium fluctuations, the LLNS equations have also been shown to be accurate for nonequilibrium systems. Previous studies of numerical methods for the LLNS equations focused primarily on measuring variances and correlations computed at equilibrium and for selected nonequilibrium flows. In this paper, we introduce a more systematic approach …


On The Accuracy Of Explicit Finite-Volume Schemes For Fluctuating Hydrodynamics, Aleksandar Donev, Eric Vanden-Eijnden, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell Jan 2010

On The Accuracy Of Explicit Finite-Volume Schemes For Fluctuating Hydrodynamics, Aleksandar Donev, Eric Vanden-Eijnden, Alejandro Garcia, John B. Bell

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the development and analysis of finite-volume methods for the Landau–Lifshitz Navier–Stokes (LLNS) equations and related stochastic partial differential equations in fluid dynamics. The LLNS equations incorporate thermal fluctuations into macroscopic hydrodynamics by the addition of white noise fluxes whose magnitudes are set by a fluctuation-dissipation relation. Originally derived for equilibrium fluctuations, the LLNS equations have also been shown to be accurate for nonequilibrium systems. Previous studies of numerical methods for the LLNS equations focused primarily on measuring variances and correlations computed at equilibrium and for selected nonequilibrium flows. In this paper, we introduce a more systematic approach …


Estimating Hydrodynamic Quantities In The Presence Of Microscopic Fluctuations, Alejandro Garcia Jan 2006

Estimating Hydrodynamic Quantities In The Presence Of Microscopic Fluctuations, Alejandro Garcia

Alejandro Garcia

This paper discusses the evaluation of hydrodynamic variables in the presence of spontaneous fluctuations, such as in molecular simulations of fluid flows. The principal point is that hydrodynamic variables such as fluid velocity and temperature must be defined in terms of mechanical variables such as momentum and energy density). Because these relations are nonlinear and because fluctuations of mechanical variables are correlated, care must be taken to avoid introducing a bias when evaluating means, variances, and correlations of hydrodynamic variables. The unbiased estimates are formulated; some alternative, incorrect approaches are presented as cautionary warnings. The expressions are verified by numerical …


Estimating Hydrodynamic Quantities In The Presence Of Microscopic Fluctuations, Alejandro Garcia Jan 2006

Estimating Hydrodynamic Quantities In The Presence Of Microscopic Fluctuations, Alejandro Garcia

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the evaluation of hydrodynamic variables in the presence of spontaneous fluctuations, such as in molecular simulations of fluid flows. The principal point is that hydrodynamic variables such as fluid velocity and temperature must be defined in terms of mechanical variables such as momentum and energy density). Because these relations are nonlinear and because fluctuations of mechanical variables are correlated, care must be taken to avoid introducing a bias when evaluating means, variances, and correlations of hydrodynamic variables. The unbiased estimates are formulated; some alternative, incorrect approaches are presented as cautionary warnings. The expressions are verified by numerical …