Dan Lucas

Biography

I have a PhD from the University of St Andrews where I studied vortex dynamics under the supervision of Prof David Dritschel. I then moved to the University of Bristol for 17 months to work with Prof Rich Kerswell FRS on using unstable periodic orbits as a basis for fluid turbulence. A two year spell at University College Dublin followed where I worked with Miguel Bustamante on nonlinear waves and singularities in inviscid fluids. I then joined the Mathematical Underpinnings of Stratified Turbulence project at DAMTP at the University of Cambridge where I studied the mechanisms for layer formation and mixing in forced stratified turbulence via nonlinear solutions. I joined Keele in September 2017.

Research and scholarship

My research interests are in fluid mechanics, in particular the nonlinear nature of turbulent flows. A large part of my research involves using computational methods to locate unstable solutions embedded within a chaotic flow and then using them to make predictions about the turbulent statistics, or investigate what physical processes they exhibit. In this way they serve as simple proxies for the complexity of the turbulence. I’m also interested in the mechanisms by which energy is transferred through a nonlinear fluid system and in the finite-time blow-up problem in inviscid flows.

Teaching

• MAT-20005 Dynamics

Further information

Homepage: http://www.scm.keele.ac.uk/staff/d_lucas/

Twitter: @drdanlucas

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Lucas

Research themes

Fluid Dynamics and Acoustics