Li-Shi Luo's Research Activities

Highlight of Recent Research

Pierre Lallemand and Li-Shi Luo, ``Theory of the lattice Boltzmann method: Dispersion, dissipation, isotropy, Galilean invariance, and stability,'' submitted to Physical Review E, (2000).

Li-Shi Luo, ``Unified Theory of the lattice Boltzmann models for nonideal gases,'' Physical Review Letters, 81:1618-1621 (1998).

Xiaoyi He and Li-Shi Luo, ``A priori derivation of the lattice Boltzmann equation,'' Physical Review E, Rapid Communications, 55:R6333-R6336 (1997).

Xiaoyi He and Li-Shi Luo, ``Theory of lattice Boltzmann method: From the Boltzmann equation to the lattice Boltzmann equation,'' Physical Review E, 56:6811-6817 (1997).

Research interests

Theory and simulations of Lattice Gas Automata (LGA) and Lattice Boltzmann Equation (LBE) for the following systems:

Computational Fluid Dynamics;

High Reynolds number flows;

Thermo-hydrodynamics;

Multi-phase flows;

Multi-component flows;

Chemically reactive flows;

Electronic transport in semiconductors.

Microscopic fluid flows.

Ellipse in a Channel Flow

The Physicists' Bill of Rights

Author Unknown (Dr. Benjamin Franklin and Mr. Thomas Jefferson are among the suspects.)

We hold these postulates to be intuitively obvious, that all physicists are born equal, to a first approximation, and are endowed by their creator with certain discrete privileges, among them a mean rest life, n degrees of freedom, and the following rights, which are invariant under all linear transformations:

I. To approximate all problems to ideal cases.
II. To use order of magnitude calculations whenever deemed necessary (i.e., whenever one can get away with it).
III. To use the rigorous method of "squinting" for solving problems more complex than the additions of positive real integers.
IV. To dismiss all functions which diverge as "nasty" and "unphysical".
V. To invoke the uncertainty principle whenever confronted by confused mathematicians, chemists, engineers, psychologists, dramatists, and andere schweinehund.
VI. To the extensive use of "bastard notations" where conventional mathematics will not work.
VII. To justify shaky reasoning on the basis that it gives the right answers.
VIII. To cleverly choose convenient initial conditions, using the principle of general triviality.
IX. To use plausible arguments in place of proofs, and thenceforth refer to those arguments as proofs.
X. To take on faith any principle which seems right but cannot be proved.

Personal Biography

Li-Shi Luo was born in 1958 (in the year of the Dog, at the apogee of the Great Leap Forward) in a coastal city Xiamen, in the Fujian Province of China. He received his elementary education in Zhangzhou City, Fujian, during the Cultural Revolution era. After his graduation from Zhangzhou Third Middle School in the fall of 1975, Mr. Luo was sent by Chairman Mao to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants of the poor, lower and middle class. In 1977, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, the re-educated Mr. Luo passed the first post-Revolutionary university entrance examination, gaining admission to the Department of Electrical Engineering of Fuzhou University. He began his studies there in Spring of 1978, and was graduated with a B.Sc. degree in Spring 1982. In May 1982 Mr. Luo traveled to London, Canada, where in September of that year he began study as a special student in the Department of Physics, University of Western Ontario. A year and a half later, he entered the graduate school to pursue his Master's degree under the supervision of Prof. John Nuttall. Mr. Luo studied large order perturbation theory and Padé approximant for his Master's thesis. After obtaining his M.Sc. degree from the University of Western Ontario, he came to the School of Physics of the Georgia Institute of Technology in October of 1986, to pursue his Ph.D. degree. In April 1989 he came to Los Alamos National Laboratory to complete his thesis work. He has been working with Dr. Gary D. Doolen in the field of lattice-gas automata (LGA) and lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) since then. After obtaining his doctoral degree from Georgia Tech in June 1993, Mr. Luo became a Research Assistant Professor in Department of Physics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, during August 1993 to December 1994. With Prof. George Phillies, he worked on problems of probes in regular and random media. Mr. Luo has returned to Los Alamos National Lab, as a consultant in Complex Systems Group in the Theoretical Division, since the end of 1994. Starting from June 1995, he become a Post-Doctoral fellow in Computational Science Methods Group in the X Division.

In November 1996, Mr. Luo joined the Institute for Computer Applications for Science and Engineering (ICASE) at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, and has become a Senior Staff Scientist since 1998. In 2003, Mr. Luo naturally became a member of newly established National Institute of Aerospace (NIA). His research activities have been concentrated on the lattice Boltzmann method and its applications to complex fluids and other systems.

Some Scientific History

(Brief History of Kinetic Theory: Under construction)

(Brief History of Hydrodynamics: Under construction)

NIA Home Page

LaRC Page

NASA Page

Send comments to Li-Shi Luo at: luo@NIAnet.org