Rich Kerswell

School of Mathematics
University Walk
Bristol University 
Bristol BS8 1TW, U.K.
R.R.Kerswell@bris.ac.uk
Tel: +44-117-928-7966
Fax: +44-117-928-7999


Research Interests

Teaching:

Mechanics 1 (official page & for extra info, running Jan 24th - May 4, 2017)

Recent Meetings

Papers:

Archive:
Kerswell, R.R. ``The instability of precessing flow'' Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dynam. 72, 107-144, 1993.
Kerswell, R.R. ``Tidal excitation of hydromagnetic waves and their damping in the Earth'' J. Fluid Mech. 274, 219-241, 1994.
Kerswell, R.R. ``Upper bounds on general dissipation functionals in turbulent shear flows: revisiting the `efficiency' functional'' J. Fluid Mech. 461, 239-275, 2002.
Wedin, H. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Exact coherent structures in pipe flow: travelling wave solutions'' (colour version) J. Fluid Mech. 508, 333-371, 2004.
Kerswell, R.R. & Tutty, O.R. ``Recurrence of travelling waves in transitional pipe flow'' (colour version) J. Fluid Mech. 584, 69-102, 2007.
Pringle, C.C.T., Duguet, Y. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Highly symmetric travelling waves in pipe flow''(colour version) Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 367, 457-472, 2009 (TW videos).
Pringle, C.C.T. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Using nonlinear transient growth to construct the minimal seed for shear flow turbulence'' Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 154502, 2010.
Chandler, G.J. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Simple invariant solutions embedded in 2D Kolmogorov turbulence'' J. Fluid Mech. 722, 554-595, 2013.
Sweeney, H., Kerswell, R.R. & Mullin, T. ``Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a finite cylinder: linear stability analysis and long-time fingering solutions'' J. Fluid Mech. 734, 338-362, 2013 (Rayleigh-Taylor codes available on request).

Recent:
Kerswell, R.R., Pringle, C.C.T. and Willis, A.P. ``An optimisation approach for analysing nonlinear stability with transition to turbulence in fluids as an exemplar'' Rep. Prog. Phys. 77, 085901, 2014.
Chantry, M. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Localization in a spanwise-extended model of plane Couette flow'' Phys. Rev. E 91, 043005, 2015.
Lucas, D. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Recurrent flow analysis in spatiotemporally chaotic 2-dimensional Kolmogorov flow'' Phys. Fluids 27, 045106, 2015.
Pringle, C.C.T., Willis, A.P. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Fully localized nonlinear energy growth optimals in pipe flow'' Phys. Fluids 27, 064102, 2015.
Wen, B., Chini, G.P., Kerswell, R.R. & Doering, C.R. ``Time-stepping approach for solving upper bound problems: application to two-dimensional Rayleigh-Benard convection'' Phys. Rev. E 92, 043012, 2015.
Kerswell, R.R. ``Instability driven by boundary inflow across shear: a way to circumvent Rayleigh's stability criterion in accretion disks?'' J. Fluid Mech. 784, 619-663, 2015.
Leclercq, C., Partridge, J.L., Augier, P., Dalziel, S.B. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Using stratification to mitigate end effects in quasi-Keplerian Taylor-Couette flow'' J. Fluid Mech. 791, 608-630, 2016.
Taylor, J.R., Deusebio, E., Caulfield, C.P. and Kerswell, R.R. ``A new method for isolating turbulent states in transitional stratified plane Couette flow'' J. Fluid Mech. 808, R1, 2016
Leclercq, C., Nguyen, F. & Kerswell, R.R. ``Connections between centrifugal, stratorotational and radiative instabilities in viscous Taylor-Couette flow'' Phys. Rev. E. 94, 043103, 2016.
Kerswell, R.R. ``Energy dissipation rates for flow through rough channels and tidal flow across topography" J. Fluid Mech. 808, 562-575, 2016.
Lucas, D. and Kerswell, R.R. ``Sustaining processes from recurrent flows in body-forced turbulence'' J. Fluid Mech. 817, R3, 2017.
Olvera, D. and Kerswell, R.R. ``Exact coherent structures in stably-stratified plane Couette flow'' J. Fluid Mech. accepted.
Lucas, D., Caulfield, C.P. and Kerswell, R.R. ``Layer formation in horizontally forced stratified turbulence: connecting exact coherent structures to linear instabilities'' arxiv:1701.05406
Olvera, D. and Kerswell, R.R. ``Optimising energy growth as a tool for finding exact coherent structures'' arxiv:1701.09103

Postdocs:

Ashley Willis, EPSRC-funded 2005-2008 (now Lecturer at Sheffield University)
Yohann Duguet, Marie-Curie Fellow 2006-2008 (now CNRS, LIMSI, Paris)
Laurent Lacaze, Marie-Curie Fellow 2006-2008 (now CNRS, IMFT, Toulouse)
Mark Woodhouse, Renishaw & North Bristol NHS Trust funded 2007-2009 (followed by postdocs at Manchester and Bristol Universities)
Gary Chandler, EPSRC-funded 2010-2011 (now dabbling in the Tokyo stock market)
Dan Lucas, EPSRC-funded 2012-2013 (now Lecturer at Keele University)
Colin Leclercq, EPSRC-funded 2014-2016 (MUST project)
Jacob Page, EPSRC-funded 2016-2018 (MUST project)
Jake Langham, EPSRC Doctoral Prize 2017-2019
Zijing Ding, EPSRC-funded 2017-2020

Graduate students:

Darren Mason 1995-1999 (now working at IPL, Bath, in software development).
Denise Cooper (née Barnes) 1996-2000 (senior software engineer at Radan Computational Ltd, Bath, in CAD).
Robert Mason 1998-2001 (followed by a postdoc in Earth Science with Prof. S. Sparks and is now working at Serco Assurance, Dorchester, in scientific consultancy).
Stephen Plasting 2000-2004 (followed by a postdoc at Scripps Oceanographic Institute, San Diego with Prof. W.R. Young; now a Vice-President at Goldman Sachs, New York).
Hakan Wedin 2001-2004 (followed by postdocs at Kyoto University with Prof. M. Nagata and now Genoa University with Prof. A. Bottaro).
Chris Pringle 2005-2009 (followed by postdocs at Reading and Nottingham Universities, now Senior Lecturer at Coventry University).
Helen Sweeney 2008-2011 (followed by training with Teach First).
Samuel Rabin 2009-2013, co-supervised with Dr Colm Caulfield (now at Credit Suisse, London).
Matthew Chantry 2010-2014 (then to Paris with Prof. L. Tuckerman and now Oxford with Prof. T. Palmer).
Daniel Olvera 2012-2017.
Alec Wilson 2015-present.