Speaker: Dr. Xianmin Xu（许现民博士）

Time:10:30-11:30, 26 April 2023 (Wednesday) (Beijing time)

Venue: A103,Lijiao Building

Tencent Meeting ID: 749-824-782

Abstract

The Onsager principle is a fundamental law for irreversible processes in statistic physics. It has been used to develop theoretical models for many problems in soft matter, like the diffusion process, the dynamics of liquid crystal solution and the moving contact line problems, etc. Recently, the variational principle has been used as an approximation tool to derive reduced models for many complicated systems. In this talk, we will present some applications the Onsager variational principle in numerical analysis, including derivation of a diffusion-generated motion method for wetting problems, a moving finite element method for gradient flows and geometric partial differential equations. The variational formulation makes it convenient to design numerical schemes and to do numerical analysis.

About Dr. Xu

许现民2009年博士毕业于北京大学，曾先后赴英国牛津大学、香港科技大学和德国亚琛工业大学进行长期学术访问或博士后研究。其主要研究兴趣是软物质科学中复杂多尺度多物理问题的建模、分析和计算。在两相流问题分析与计算、非线性弹性可计算建模、以及曲面上偏微分方程数值方法等方面取得一系列优秀成果。迄今共发表学术论文46篇，其中大多发表于应用和计算数学及相关领域的一流期刊上，包括Arch. Rational Mech. Anal., SIAM J. Numer. Anal.，SIAM J. Sci. Comput., Numer. Math., J. Fluid Mech., J. Comput. Phys.等。目前担任Int. J. Numer. Anal. Mod. 期刊编委，曾受邀在第二十届流体力学数值方法研讨会上做大会报告。