Student Presenter(s): Samantha Rivera
Faculty Mentor: Eduardo Corona
Department: Mathematics
School/College: College of Arts and Sciences, Long Island

Granular materials and "wet" colloidal suspensions constitute the second most handled media in the global industry. They are constantly found in geophysical matter, raw industrial materials, and biological environments such as sand, coal, and bacterial colonies. While these materials can be easily modeled in terms of particle interactions, we lack a well-developed theoretical framework for them due to the complex, non-linear behaviors emerging from these interactions. Simulations modeling granular media rely on various principles from solid mechanics, fluid dynamics, and statistical physics. Accurate simulations of granular media are needed for proper design and analysis of the physics and engineering of materials. However, their relevance is not limited to scientific application; in fact, these simulations are essential in computer graphics and video games.

In order to produce high fidelity simulations of granular media and wet suspensions, efficient numerical methods must be applied to address the many challenges involved. In this talk, I will be presenting our research involving the investigation and implementation of novel adaptive time stepping techniques to an optimization-based model of granular systems. Our main objective in this ongoing work is to optimize state-of-the-art simulation methods in order to implement an informative and optimal computational framework of granular materials.