(534e) Modeling and Simulation of a Two Phase Flow as An Example of Effective Research Computation for a Graduate Seminar Class

Graduate level research can emphasize either laboratory results or modeling results or both. Effective modeling results often have an important computational component. An important goal of modeling is often to match experimental resultswith model computations. Such a match can give confidence that the model, as a scientific explanation of experimental observations, is correct. If computations do not match experimental observations, then either the computations are in error or the model is not a good explanation of the observed phenomena. The most confidence results when the model and the experiments are done by different researchers. New graduate students do not always grasp some of these basic points. One approach to teaching them the significance of modeling in research is to derive a model based on coursework they have completed for a particular research topic and show them a set of computational results obtained from the model and compared to a set of experimental observations for that topic. This compels them to realize that not all problems have already been solved and that effective computation applied to good models can lead to an accurate representation of observations of the phenomena. A graduate seminar course is a good place to do this.