Elbridge Gerry Puckett's Photo

Elbridge Gerry Puckett

(UNDER RENOVATION)

Elbridge Gerry Puckett

egpuckett@ucdavis.edu

ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6589-7395

Google_Scholar logo Elbridge Gerry Puckett

Professor of Mathematics
University of California
Department of Mathematics
One Shields Avenue
Davis, California 95616

I am a computational scientist, an applied mathematician, and a numerical analyst. I work on a wide range of problems that come from science, engineering, and industry. I am a product of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Mathematical, Information, and Computational Sciences (MICS) program. When I was a graduate student I worked as a Graduate Student Research Assistant (GSRA) in the Mathematics Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). I then spent three years as a Postdocal Fellow in the Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering (CCSE) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). After I joined the U.C. Davis faculty in July 1990 I continued to work as consultant for CCSE. I have also consulted for the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (ANAG) at LBNL.

My work almost always involves the use of supercomputers to model the problem I am working on at the moment.

Postdoctoral Fellowship Position Year
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) DOE Applied Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow 1987 - 1990
Institution Degree Obtained Advisor Year
University of California, Berkeley PhD, Mathematics Alexandre Chorin 1987
Year joining UC Davis
1990
Year Position Institution
1998 - 2001 Chair, Graduate Group in Applied Mathematics UC Davis
1997 - 1998 NSF University-Industry Cooperative Research Fellowship in the Mathematical Sciences Xerox Corporate Research Center, Webster, NY
1997 - Present Professor, Department of Mathematics UC Davis
Spring 1995 Hudnell Distinguished Lecturer, Department of Geophysical Sciences University of Chicago
1993 - 1997 Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics UC Davis
1990 - 1995 Consultant, Applied Mathematics Group LLNL
1990 - 1993 Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics UC Davis
Summer 1992 Research Fellow, Institute of Fluid Science Tohoku University Sendai, Japan
Fall 1990 Research Fellow, Centre for Math Analysis Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
1987 - 1990 DOE Applied Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow LLNL
1986 - 1987 Physicist, Computational Physics Division LLNL
Postdoc Year Current Position Institution
Dr. Ying He 2014 - 2017 Algorithm Engineer KLA-Tencor, Milpitas, CA
Prof. Mark Sussman 1996 - 1999 Professor of Mathematics Florida State University
Dr. Igor Aleinov 1996 - 1999 Associate Research Scientist NASA Goddard Institute
PhD Student Year Current Position Institution
Jonathan Robey Current PhD Student UC Davis
Dr. Sarah Ann Williams 2004 - 2007 Mathematics Instructor Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA
Dr. Matthew Wayne Williams 1995 - 2000 Technical Staff Member Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. James Edward Pilliod 1992 - 1996 Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (Last Known Position) Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL)
Masters Student Year Current Position Institution
Christopher Aldo Algieri 2003 - 2005 Computational Research Division (Last Known Position) LBL
Rita Maria Hurst 1993 - 1995 CARL Corporation (Last Known Position) Denver, CO
James Edward Pilliod 1991 - 1992 Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (Last Known Position) LBL
Year Position Organization Description
2016 - Present Member Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG) Computational Science Working Group CIG is an NSF funded, community-driven, organization that advances Earth science by developing and disseminating software for geophysics and related fields. Members of CIG Science Working Groups are appointed by the Executive Committee and provide domain expertise to the Science Steering Committee advising the group on software development setting priorities and recommending future directions.
2016 - Present Member Deep Carbon Observatory
2013 - Present Member American Geophysical Union (AGU)
2012-2013 Member Two hiring committees for CIG Staff Scientists.
1997 - Present Reviewer Panelist DOE and NSF Grant Proposals
1997 - Present Reviewer Shock Waves `An International Journal on Shock Waves, Detonations and Explosions' (Springer); Journal of Fluid Mechanics; Journal of Computational Physics; American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Journal; International of Numerical Methods in Fluids; Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations, Computers and Fluids, ...
Jul. 12 - 16, 2010 Co-organizer Minisymposium on Analysis and Application of Numerical Methods for Multi-phase Flow, SIAM Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA
2005 - 2006 Consultant Hydrologic Engineering Center, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (pro bono)
2002-2003 Reviewer Cambridge University Press Book manuscript
May - Sept. 2002 Consultant Applied Numerical Algorithms Group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
2000-2001 Discussor Invited by the Office of Naval Research to be the discussor of the paper The Numerical Simulation of Ship Waves Using Cartesian Grid Methods presented at the 23rd Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics held in Val de Reuil, France, September 17-22, 2000
Jul. 09 - 13, 2001 Co-organizer Minisymposium on Numerical methods for multi-phase /multi-fluid flow, SIAM Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA
Jan. 10 - 13, 2001 Co-chair Conference on Analysis and Modeling of Industrial Jetting Processes Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, University of Minnesota
Oct. 12 - 14, 2000 Panelist and Invited Speaker Can industrial internships improve graduate education in mathematics? SIAM Northwest Regional Mathematics in Industry Workshop, University of Washington
June 15-17, 1998 Co-chair Conference on Advances in Applied and Computational Mathematics Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, CA (Alexandre Chorin's 60th Birthday Celebration)
1997-1998 Reviewer Book review for SIAM (Society of Industrial a Applied Mathematics) Review
Jul. 12 - 18, 1997 Co-organizer Minisymposium on Numerical Methods for Solving Free-Boundary Problems SIAM Annual Meeting, Stanford University
1997-1998 Examiner Outside examiner for a PhD thesis in the Department of Chemical Engineering,

  1. Refereed Journal Publications

  2. Submitted
    3. J. M. Robey and E. G. Puckett Implementation of a Volume-of-Fluid Method in a Finite Element Code with Applications to Thermochemical Convection in a Density Stratified Fluid in the Earth's Mantle Special issue of Computers and Fluids on Moving Boundaries (Ms. Ref. No.: CAF-D-18-0005) (2018) C. Thieulot and E. G. Puckett Incompressible Stokes flow in an annulus: An analytical solution and numerical benchmark, Computers and Geosciences (Submission no: CAGEO_2018_466) (2018)
  3. Accepted
    4. R. Gassmoeller, H. Lokavarapu, E. Heien, E. G. Puckett, and W. Bangerth, Flexible and scalable particle-in-cell methods with adaptive mesh refinement for geodynamic computations, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems manuscript 2018GC007508R (2018)
  4. Appeared
    5. E. G. Puckett, D. L. Turcotte, L. H. Kellogg, Y. He, J. M. Robey, and H. Lokavarapu New numerical approaches for modeling thermochemical convection in a compositionally stratified fluid, Special issue of . Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors associated with the 15th Studies of the Earth's Deep Interior (SEDI) Symposium (Phys. Earth. Planet. In.) 276:10–35, 10.1016/j.pepi.2017.10.004 (2018) Y. He, E. G. Puckett, and M. I. Billen A Discontinuous Galerkin Method with a Bound Preserving Limiter for Stable Advection of non-Diffusive Fields in Solid Earth Geodynamics, Phys. Earth. Planet. In., 263:23-37, 10.1016/j.pepi.2016.12.001 (2017), L. F. Henderson and E. G. Puckett The Refraction of Shock Pairs Shock Waves `An International Journal on Shock Waves, Detonations and, Explosions' 24(6):553-572 DOI 10.1007/s00193-014-0513-8 (2014) E. G. Puckett On the Second-Order Accuracy of Volume-of-Fluid Interface Reconstruction Algorithms II: An Improved Constraint on the Cell Size, Comm. App. Math. Comput. Sci. 8(1):123-–158 (2013) DOI 10.2140/camcos.2013.8.123 A Neumann–Neumann preconditioned iterative substructuring approach for computing solutions to Poisson’s equation with prescribed jumps on an embedded boundary J. Comput. Phys. 235(1):683-700, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2012.10.023 E. G. Puckett A Volume-of-Fluid Interface Reconstruction Algorithm that is Second-Order Accurate in the Max Norm, Comm. App. Math. Comput. Sci. 5(2):199-220. (2010) E. G. Puckett On the Second-Order Accuracy of Volume-of-Fluid Interface Reconstruction Algorithms: Convergence in the Max Norm Comm. Appl. Math. Comput. Sci. 5(1):99-148. (2010) E. G. Puckett and J. E. Pilliod Second-Order Accurate Volume-of-Fluid Algorithms for Tracking Material Interfaces, J. Comput. Phys. 199(2):465-502. (2004) M. M. Sussman and E. G. Puckett A Coupled Level Set and Volume-of-Fluid Method for Computing 3D and Axisymmetric Incompressible Two-Phase Flows, J. Comput. Phys. 162(2):301-337. (2000) E. G. Puckett Introduction to A Numerical Method for Solving Incompressible Viscous Flow Problems This was an invited paper for a special issue of J. Comput. Phys. 135(2):115-117. (1997) E. G. Puckett, A. S. Almgren, J. B. Bell, D. L. Marcus, and W. J. Rider A High-Order Projection Method for Tracking Fluid Interfaces in Variable Density Incompressible Flows J. Comput. Phys. 130(2):269-282. (1997) G. H. Miller and E. G. Puckett A High-Order Godunov Method for Multiple Condensed Phases J. Comput. Phys. 128(1):134-164 (1996) G. H. Miller and E. G. Puckett Edge Effects in Molybdenum-Encapsulated Molten Silicate Shock Wave Targets J. Appl. Phys. 75(3):1426-1434 DOI 10.1063/1.356424 (1994) E. G. Puckett and J. S. Saltzman A 3D Adaptive Mesh Refinement Algorithm for Multimaterial Gas Dynamics Physica D, 60:84-104 (1992) L. F. Henderson, P. Colella and E. G. Puckett On the Refraction of Shock Waves at a Slow-Fast Gas Interface J. Fluid Mech. 224:1-27 (1991) S. B. Baden and E. G. Puckett A fast vortex method for computing 2D viscous flow J. Comput. Phys. 91(2):278-297. (1990) E. G. Puckett A study of the vortex sheet method and its rate of convergence SIAM J. Sci. and Stat. Comput. 10(2):298–327 DOI 10.1137/0910020 (1989) E. G. Puckett Convergence of a random particle method to solutions of the Kolmogorov equation ut = ν uxx + u (1-u) Math. Comput. 52(186):615-645. (1989)

  5. Invited Book Chapters

    6. E. G. Puckett Vortex Methods: An Introduction and Survey of Selected Research Topics in R. A. Nicolaides and M. D. Gunzburger (eds) Incompressible Computational Fluid Dynamics - Trends and Advances, pp. 335-407, Cambridge University Press (1993) E. G. Puckett The Random Vortex Method with Vorticity Creation: Introduction and Guide to Parameter Selection in Vortex Dynamics and Vortex Methods, C. R. Anderson and C. Greengard (eds) Lectures in Applied Mathematics Vol. 28, pp. 567-584 American Mathematical Society (1991) E. G. Puckett A Numerical Study of Shock Wave Refraction at a CO2 / CH4 Interface in J. Glimm and A. J. Majda (Eds) Multidimensional Hyperbolic Problems and Computations, pp. 261-280, Springer-Verlag DOI 10.1007/978-1-4613-9121-0_21 (1991)

  6. Reviewed Conference Proceedings

    7. W. L. Jin, L. Chen, and E. G. Puckett Supply-demand diagrams and a new framework for analyzing the inhomogeneous Lighthill-Whitham-Richards model In: Lam W., Wong S., Lo H. (Eds) Transportation and Traffic Theory 2009: Golden Jubilee, pp. 603-635, Springer DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0820-9_30 (2009)
  7. D. B. Kothe, E. G. Puckett, and M. W. Williams Convergence and Accuracy of Kernel-Based Continuum Surface Tension Models, in W. Shyy and R. Narayanan (ed) Fluid Dynamics at Interfaces, pp. 347-356, (1999) Cambridge Univ. Press
    8. J. E. Pilliod and E. G. Puckett (1997) An unsplit, second-order accurate Godunov method for tracking deflagrations and detonations in A. F. P. Houwing, et al (eds) Proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW21) pp. 1053-1058 Great Keppel Island, Queensland, Australia, July 20-25, 1997, Panther Publishers, Fyshwick, Australia E.G. Puckett and G. H. Miller (1996) "Numerical computation of jetting impacts" In B. Sturtevant, J. E. Shepherd, and H. G. Hornung (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW20) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, July 23-28, 1995, World Scientific J.A. Greenough, J.B. Bell, P. Colella, E.G. Puckett, and J.W. Jacobs (1996) A Numerical Study of Shock-Acceleration of a Diffuse Helium Cylinder, In B. Sturtevant, J. E. Shepherd, and H. G. Hornung (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW20) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, July 23-28, 1995, World Scientific J.A. Greenough, J.B. Bell, P. Colella, E.G. Puckett, and J.W. Jacobs (1996) A Numerical Study of Shock-Acceleration of a Diffuse Helium Cylinder, In B. Sturtevant, J. E. Shepherd, and H. G. Hornung (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW20) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, July 23-28, 1995, World Scientific J.A. Greenough, J.B. Bell, P. Colella, E.G. Puckett, and J.W. Jacobs (1996) A Numerical Study of Shock-Acceleration of a Diffuse Helium Cylinder, In B. Sturtevant, J. E. Shepherd, and H. G. Hornung (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW20) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, July 23-28, 1995, World Scientific J.A. Greenough, J.B. Bell, P. Colella, E.G. Puckett, and J.W. Jacobs (1996) A Numerical Study of Shock-Acceleration of a Diffuse Helium Cylinder, In B. Sturtevant, J. E. Shepherd, and H. G. Hornung (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW20) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, July 23-28, 1995, World Scientific E. G. Puckett, L. F. Henderson, and P. Colella (1995) A General Theory of Anomalous Shock Refraction, in R. Brun and L. Z. Dumitrescu (Eds) Shock Waves @ Marseille IV, Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW19) pp. 139-144, Marseille, France, July 26-30, 1993 Springer DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-79532-9_22 L. F. Henderson, E. G. Puckett, and P. Colella (1991) Anomalous Refraction of Shock Waves In K. Takayama (Ed) Shock Waves I, Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW18) pp. 283-286, Sendai, Japan, July 21-26, 1989 Springer DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-77648-9
  8. E. G. Puckett (1988) A Study of the Vortex Sheet Method for Solving the Prandtl Boundary Layer Equations In Michel O. Deville (Ed) Proceedings of the Seventh GAMM Conference on Numerical Methods in Fluid Mechanics, pp. 302-309, Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, West Germany

  9. Unreviewed Conference Proceedings

    10. I. D. Aleinov, E. G. Puckett and M. M. Sussman (1999) Formation of Droplets In Microscale Jetting Devices {\bf FEDSM99-7106}, in Proceedings of the 3rd ASME/JSME Joint Fluids Engineering Conference, July 18-23, 1999, San Francisco, CA D. B. Kothe, M. W. Williams, K. L. Lam, D. R. Korzekwa, P. K. Tubesing, and E. G. Puckett (1999) A Second-Order Accurate, Linearity-Preserving Volume Tracking Algorithm for Free Surface Flows on 3-D Unstructured Meshes {\bf FEDSM99-7109} in Proceedings of the 3rd ASME/JSME Joint Fluids Engineering Conference, July 18-23, 1999, San Francisco, CA P. Colella, D. Graves, D. Modiano, E. G. Puckett, and M. M. Sussman (1999) An Embedded Boundary/Volume of Fluid Method for Free Surface Flows in Irregular Geometries {\bf FEDSM99-7108} in Proceedings of the 3rd ASME/JSME Joint Fluids Engineering Conference, July 18-23, 1999, San Francisco, CA M. W. Williams, D. B. Kothe, and E. G. Puckett (1999) Approximating Interface Topologies with Applications to Interface Tracking Algorithms {\bf AIAA-99-1076} in Proceedings of the 37th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 11-14, 1999, Reno, NV DOI 10.2514/6.1999-1076 M. W. Williams, D. B. Kothe, and E. G. Puckett (1999) Robust Finite Volume Modeling of 3-D Free Surface Flows on Unstructured Meshes {\bf AIAA-99-3320} in Proceedings of the 14th AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, November 01-05, 1999, Norfolk, VA DOI 10.2514/6.1999-3320 W. J. Rider, D. B. Kothe, E. G. Puckett, and I. D. Aleinov (1998) Accurate and Robust Methods for Variable Density Incompressible Flows with Discontinuities in V. Venkatakrishnan, M. D. Salas, and S. R. Chakravarthy, (eds) Barriers and Challenges in Computational Fluid Dynamics, ICASE LaRC Interdisciplinary Series in Science and Engineering, Vol. 6, pp. 213-230, Springer DOI 10.1016/S0898-1221(98)91117-8 J. J. Helmsen, E. G. Puckett, P. Colella, and M. Dorr (1996) Two new methods for simulating photolithography development in 3D, Optical Microlithography IX, Proceedings of SPIE's 1996 International Symposium on Microlithography 2726:253-262, DOI 10.1117/12.240959
  10. I. D. Aleinov and E. G. Puckett (1995) Computing surface tension with high-order kernels, in M. Hafez and K. Oshima (Eds) Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Computational Fluid Dynamics, pp. 13-18.
  11. E. G. Puckett (1991) A Volume-of-Fluid Interface Tracking Algorithm with Applications to Computing Shock Wave Refraction In H. Dwyer, (Ed), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Computational Fluid Dynamics, pp. 933-938 Davis, CA
  12. D. L. Marcus, E. G. Puckett, J. B. Bell, and J. S. Saltzman (1991) Numerical Simulation of Accelerated Interfaces In R. Dautray, (Ed) Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on the Physics of Compressible Turbulent Mixing pp. 63-81. Royaumont, France
  13. L. F. Henderson, E. G. Puckett, and P. Colella (1990) On the Anomalous Refraction of Shock Waves. In Proceedings of the Second Japan-Soviet Union Symposium on Computational Fluid Dynamics, pages 144-153, Tsukuba, Japan.
  14. E. G. Puckett, L. F. Henderson, and P. Colella (1989) Computations of the Refraction of a Plane Shock Wave at a Slow-Fast Gas Interface In American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, 208:946-950
    15. P. Colella, L. F. Henderson, and E. G. Puckett (1989) A Numerical Study of Shock Wave Refraction at a Gas Interface In Proceedings of the AIAA 9th Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, AIAA-89-1973 pp. 426-439, Buffalo, New York E. G. Puckett (1988) Numerical Estimates of the Rate of Convergence for the Vortex Sheet Method In Proceedings of the First National Fluid Dynamics Congress Cincinnati, Ohio AIAA-88-3796-CP pp. 630-635 DOI 10.2514/6.1988-3796 S. B. Baden and E. G. Puckett (1988) A Fast Vortex Code for Computing 2D Flow in a Box In Proceedings of the First National Fluid Dynamics Congress Cincinnati, Ohio AIAA-88-3605-CP pp. 185-192

  15. DOE Laboratory Reports Not Published Elsewhere

    16. S. A. Williams, A. S. Almgren and E. G. Puckett (2006) On Using a Fast Multipole Method-based Poisson Solver in an Approximate Projection Method Technical Report Number LBNL Report 59934 DOI 10.2172/898942 J. J. Helmsen, P. Colella, and E. G. Puckett (1997) Non-convex profile evolution in two dimensions using volume of fluids, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report 40693 DOI 10.2172/539515

Research Interests

My research interests lie in the area of scientific computing, especially High Performance Computing (HPC), primarily in the field of computational fluid mechanics. For the last five years members of my research group and I have been developing new or improved algorthms for modeling convection and other processes in the Earth's mantle. This numerical methodolooy is implemented in the open source mantle convection code ASPECT, which is part of a collection of freely available open source codes that can be found at the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics.

Over the course of my career the vast majority of my work has involved the development and use of algorithms for modeling the interface between two materials that are subject to the equations of motion governing the flow of a fluid, such as the compressible Euler equations (i.e., gas dynamics) or the incompressible Euler or Navier-Stokes equations. Examples of problems I have worked on include the refraction of a shock wave at the interface between two gases, the impact of two solids in the hydrostatic limit (e.g., meteorite impact), and the microscale jetting of a fluid (e.g., ink jet printing). Continuing this line of research, Jonathan Robey, who is a graduate student in our research group, is now implementing an interface tracking algorithm in ASPECT. The 2D version has just been merged into the working master branch of ASPECT on GitHub. Try it out!

MAT228A 2018
MAT228B 2018
MAT228A 2019
MAT228B 2019