Abstract
Over the past decade due to the rapid increase in computer power, the large-eddy simulation (LES) approach has emerged as a valuable tool for turbulence research and has contributed invaluable information on the structure and dynamics of a variety of flows which are of engineering interest. There are, however, applications from biology and physiology where the use of LES has received considerably less attention as a result of exceedingly complex fluid/structure interactions that dominate the dynamics of such flows, but the potential rewards if one were successful are great. In this seminar computational algorithms suitable for LES of the above class of flows will be discussed. Particular emphasis will be given on an embedded boundary formulation we have recently developed, where the fluid flow equations are solved on a fixed grid that does not conform to the structure, and boundary conditions are imposed using a local reconstructions.  The structure that undergoes both linear-elastic and large-angle/large-displacement rigid body motions is strongly coupled to the fluid using a predictor-corrector approach.  Results for both laminar and complex turbulent flow problems will be discussed.

Biographical Sketch
Elias Balaras is an Assistant Professor at the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of the University of Maryland.  Dr. Balaras received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1995. He was formerly a visiting scientist at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Maryland.  He has been on the Faculty at the University of Maryland since January 2001. Dr. Balaras's current research is in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics of complex turbulent and transitional flows. He has been the recipient of several awards including the Marie-Currie fellowship from the European Commission in 1994 and the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2003.  Dr. Balaras has published over 40 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings.