Spotting Narwhals in Fluid Chaos
BSU Mathematics Seminar
- When
-
Monday, April 13, 2026
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm (ET) - Where
-
DMF 461
Zoom meeting link - Speaker
- Elaine Gorom (Smith College)
- Format
- Hybrid (in person and Zoom)
- Organizers
-
- Vignon Oussa — VOUSSA@bridgew.edu
- Xiangfei (Fei) Chen — X10CHEN@bridgew.edu
- Mahmoud El-Hashash — MELHASHASH@bridgew.edu
Abstract
Viscoelastic fluids can exhibit surprisingly rich dynamics even in regimes where inertia is negligible. In particular, elasticity alone can drive instabilities and transitions to complex flow states. In this talk, I explore the dynamics of 2D viscoelastic Kolmogorov flow using numerical simulations of the Stokes–Oldroyd–B model. As the Weissenberg number increases, coherent traveling structures emerge in the polymer stress field. These structures undergo a sequence of dynamical transitions, including oscillations and period-doubling bifurcations, eventually leading to chaotic flow behavior.
To investigate these phenomena, I perform spectral simulations across a range of Weissenberg numbers to capture the evolution of these elastic stress structures and their interactions. Using the resulting spatiotemporal datasets, I then explore data-driven approaches to model discovery. In particular, I apply Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (SINDy) to identify low-dimensional dynamical systems that reproduce the observed transitions.
Short Bio
Elaine Gorom is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Smith College. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2024, after completing a B.S. in Mathematics at Drake University. Her research focuses on computational and mathematical modeling of complex physical systems, including multiscale models of crystalline materials and the dynamics of biological swimmers in Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids. She is currently investigating nonlinear and chaotic behavior in complex fluids combined with data-driven modeling techniques.
Speaker website:
https://sites.google.com/uncc.edu/elaine-gorom/
Questions? Contact the organizers:
Vignon Oussa — VOUSSA@bridgew.edu
Xiangfei (Fei) Chen — X10CHEN@bridgew.edu
Mahmoud El-Hashash — MELHASHASH@bridgew.edu