Keynote speakers

Prof. Matthew R. Bate: Matthew Bate is Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in the School of Physics at the University of Exeter (UK). He is one of the world leading experts on the application of the SPH method to the study of the process of star formation. His simulations involve performing self-gravitating fluid dynamical simulations, some of which also include radiation transport and magnetic fields. Many of the simulations require months and years of computer time and must be performed on some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

Dr. Richard Southern: Richard is joint Head of Department at the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University, the leading school for education and research in Computer Animation and Visual Effects in the UK and one of the top 5 worldwide. He has undertaken research in many areas of Computer Graphics, including dynamical modelling, geometry processing, virtual reality and real-time rendering. In collaboration with partners in the Visual Effects industry he continues to develop high performance solutions to problems in fluid and physical simulations with practical applications in film production.

Dr. Salvatore Marrone: Salvatore Marrone is a researcher since 2014 at CNR-INSEAN, the Institute of Marine Engineering of the Italian National Research Council. The main focus of his research is the computational aspects of mesh-free numerical methods (SPH and Diffused Vortex Hydrodynamics) and their applications. He is one of the developers of delta-SPH. Salvatore is the leading autor of the Joe Monaghan Prize 2018: “delta-SPH model for simulating violent impact flows” and will present a review of the awarded paper in a specially devoted session.

Training Day

For those of you with little or no experience on SPH, or those of you who want to get a grasp of the practical applications of the method, we will offer the traditional Training Day. On the 24th of June, you will have the chance to learn the basics of sph from world-class experts. You can join the training day during registration, and do not forget to send us an email in case of doubt! (spheric2019@gmail.com). The Training Day will be split into two morning lectures and a hands-on afternoon practice session. The preliminary program includes:

Morning lecture gy Dr. Guillaume Oger (9:30-11:00): Guillaume Oger started working on the SPH method in 2004 during his PhD, and was graduated from the University of Nantes/Ecole Centrale Nantes in 2006. He worked during three years (2007-2010) as researcher/developer at HydrOcean (known today as Nextflow Software), specializing in the creation of innovative software for complex fluid flows. His research interest mainly concerns numerical modeling of high-dynamic free surface flows, with a focus on distributed memory parallelization. Since 2011, he works as researcher at LHEEA (Research Laboratory in Hydrodynamics, Energetics and Atmospheric Environment) of Ecole Centrale Nantes, addressing SPH and other numerical methods such as Finite Volumes.

His lecture will aim at introducing the fundamentals of SPH, together with some practical aspects, including:

• Basics of the SPH method
• SPH formulations in weakly-compressible approach
• Scheme stabilization (use of diffusive terms, Riemann solvers)
• Boundary conditions
• Space varying resolution (variable smoothing length, Adaptive Particle Refinement)
• Parallelization on distributed memory

Morning lecture by Dr. Angelo Tafuni (11:00-13:00): Angelo Tafuni started working on SPH in 2012 during his PhD. He earned his doctorate of philosophy in Mechanical Engineering in 2016 from New York University (Brooklyn, NY USA), where he also stayed as a visiting faculty, carrying out independent SPH research beyond the PhD. He is currently employed as tenure-track assistant professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), with a joint appointment between the School of Applied Engineering and Technology and the Mechanical Engineering Department. At NJIT, Dr. Tafuni conducts numerical and experimental research in the field of Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer, with a special emphasis on free-surface hydrodynamics and liquid sloshing phenomena that arise in ocean and aerospace engineering applications. His lecture will review state-of-the-art techniques for the treatment of boundary conditions in SPH, together with some numerical results obtained via the software DualSPHysics.

Hands on practice session with the SPH-flow team (14:00-16:00): This training course aims to carry out a brief overview of the SPH method (SPH kernel, boundary conditions, adaptative particle refinement…). These items will be illustrated by three bi-dimensional use-cases: sloshing tank, dam break and wedge impact. The course participants will study the influence of the parameters of the SPH method using the solver SPH-flow from Nextflow Software, and its new GUI Nextflow Studio, which includes specific tools such as meshing, complex volume filling and basic post-processing. Website: https://www.nextflow-software.com/ Email: contact@nextflow-software.com