My main research project is about the simulation of multiphase flow, in particular concerning the motion of fluid-fluid interfaces (e.g. water and air) in the vicinity of rigid walls (contact lines at domain boundaries). In conventional models, fluids are not able to move correctly at contact lines because of no-slip velocity boundary conditions. Moreover, wetting phenomena driven by oblique contact angles are not included in basic models. However, this static boundary behaviour does not represent what we observe in real world: water drops can indeed flow down a window pane. One goal of my research is to couple conventional level set methods to chemical equations close to rigid walls, such as the Cahn-Hilliard equation, in order to get a more realistic model.

Position

I am supervised by Gunilla Kreiss and Per Lötstedt and work on the project Numerical methods for simulating multiphase flow at the division of scientific computing. My Ph.D. position is funded by the graduate school in mathematics and computing (FMB).

Personal background

I grew up in northern Italy and did my diploma studies in engineering mathematics at Technische Universität München, Germany.

• Numerical simulation of multiphase flow using the level set method and the phase field model (Cahn-Hilliard equation)
• Multiscale methods based on level set and phase field models (collaboration with Claudio Walker and Bernhard Müller at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
• Stabilized finite element methods for flow problems, especially the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, Stokes equations, Boussinesq equations (joint work on a Boussinesq problem with Wolfgang Bangerth at Texas A&M University)
• Variational multiscale methods in fluid dynamics and large eddy simulation and their relation to stabilization (joint work with Volker Gravemeier at TU München)
• Efficient numerical linear algebra for flow problems

Publications

CV

Finite element programming

I regularly contribute to the open-source C++ finite element library project deal.II, in particular I have written a few tutorial programs (mostly together with Wolfgang Bangerth). deal.II has interfaces to the most common quadrilateral elements, supports adaptive mesh refinement, can run in parallel and is written in object-oriented form. For running programs on clusters with thousands of processor cores, I use features of Trilinos (like algebraic multigrid preconditioners).

Current events

• Optimization. HT 11, period 2.

Past events

• Applied Scientific Computing (Tillämpad beräkningsvetenskap). Teaching modules on Computational structural mechanics and Computational fluid dynamics, spring 2010.
• Applied Scientific Computing (Tillämpad beräkningsvetenskap). Teaching modules on Computational structural mechanics and Computational fluid dynamics, spring 2009.
• Beräkningsvetenskap 1 för maskiningenjörsprogrammet MI2 (Scientific Computing 1). Teacher assistant, fall 2008.
• Applied Scientific Computing (Tillämpad beräkningsvetenskap). Teaching module on Computational structural mechanics, spring 2008.
• Beräkningsvetenskap 1 (Scientific Computing 1). Teacher assistant, fall 2007.
• Numerische Mathematik III (Numerik der gewöhnlichen Differenzialgleichungen; Numerical methods for ordinary differential equations) at Technische Universität München, Germany. Teacher assistant, fall term 2006.
• Lineare Algebra (Linear algebra) at Technische Universität München, Germany. Teacher assistant, fall term 2004, spring term 2005.