Charles Puelz

Charles Puelz, Suncica Canic, Beatrice Riviere et al.

One-dimensional blood flow models take the general form of nonlinear hyperbolic systems but differ greatly in their formulation. One class of models considers the physically conserved quantities of mass and momentum, while another class describes mass and velocity. Further, the averaging process employed in the model derivation requires the specification of the axial velocity profile; this choice differentiates models within each class. Discrepancies among differing models have yet to be investigated. In this paper, we systematically compare several reduced models of blood flow for physiologically relevant vessel parameters, network topology, and boundary data. The models are discretized by a class of Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin methods.

Charles Puelz, Beatrice Riviere

In this paper we show theoretical convergence of a second-order Adams-Bashforth discontinuous Galerkin method for approximating smooth solutions to scalar nonlinear conservation laws with E-fluxes. A priori error estimates are also derived for a first-order forward Euler discontinuous Galerkin method. Rates are optimal in time and suboptimal in space; they are valid under a CFL condition.

Sebastian Acosta, Charles Puelz, Beatrice Riviere et al.

Mathematical modeling at the level of the full cardiovascular system requires the numerical approximation of solutions to a one-dimensional nonlinear hyperbolic system describing flow in a single vessel. This model is often simulated by computationally intensive methods like finite elements and discontinuous Galerkin, while some recent applications require more efficient approaches (e.g. for real-time clinical decision support, phenomena occurring over multiple cardiac cycles, iterative solutions to optimization/inverse problems, and uncertainty quantification). Further, the high speed of pressure waves in blood vessels greatly restricts the time step needed for stability in explicit schemes. We address both cost and stability by presenting an efficient and unconditionally stable method for approximating solutions to diagonal nonlinear hyperbolic systems. Theoretical analysis of the algorithm is given along with a comparison of our method to a discontinuous Galerkin implementation. Lastly, we demonstrate the utility of the proposed method by implementing it on small and large arterial networks of vessels whose elastic and geometrical parameters are physiologically relevant.

Charles Puelz, Mark Embree, Jake Fillman

Quasiperiodic Jacobi operators arise as mathematical models of quasicrystals and in more general studies of structures exhibiting aperiodic order. The spectra of these self-adjoint operators can be quite exotic, such as Cantor sets, and their fine properties yield insight into associated dynamical systems. Quasiperiodic operators can be approximated by periodic ones, the spectra of which can be computed via two finite dimensional eigenvalue problems. Since long periods are necessary to get detailed approximations, both computational efficiency and numerical accuracy become a concern. We describe a simple method for numerically computing the spectrum of a period-$K$ Jacobi operator in $O(K^2)$ operations, and use it to investigate the spectra of Schrödinger operators with Fibonacci, period doubling, and Thue-Morse potentials.