Courses  >  eosc352

EOSC 352 - Geophysical Continuum Dynamics

Course Description

Introduction to tensor calculus and continuum mechanics. Stress, strain and strain-rate tensors. Mass, momentum and energy balance. Applications to problems of geophysical heat transport, elasticity and fluid dynamics illustrated using MATLAB.


UBC Calendar

For a full listing of course offerings please see the UBC calendar description

Learning Goals

under development

Instructors

Christian Schoof

Textbook

Required: Online notes (see below)

Recommended:

  • Continuum mechanics by G. E. Mase in the McGraw Hill Schaum Outline Series.
  • Geodynamics by D. Turcotte and G. Schubert
  • Mechanics in the Earth and Environmental Sciences, G. Middleton and P. Wilcox, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
I highly recommend the text by Mase as it gives a very succinct description of the basic concepts and the mathematics involved. The text by Turcotte and Schubert also gives an abbreviated introduction, and applies continuum mechanics to real Earth Sciences problems. Some of the matieral in Turcotte and Schubert goes beyond the present course. Previous editions of the course have used the text by Middleton and Wilcox, which is less mathematical but gives a useful introduction to scaling.

Course Content

Division of marks:
Assignments - 40%
Mid-term exam - 10%
Quizzes/Class participation - 10%
Final exam - 40%

Mid-Term Examination - tbd

Assignments:

I expect to set 5 assignments in this course. They will be set on Fridays and wil be due at the end of class on the following Friday. No marks for late assignments without a good reason.

Office hours

Wednesday 3-4 pm, EOS-South 262. Contact me in advance if you can't make this but need to see me.

Background material:

Course materials for EOS 352:

Exam materials:

 

Lecture Topics

  • Review of continuum physics
  • Mathematical tools: volume and surface integrals, gradients and divergences
  • Transport of conserved quantities: fluxes
  • Conservation laws and the divergence theorem
  • Partial differential equations as continuum physics models
  • Methods: steady states, similarity and wave solutions for the heat equation
  • Length scales, non-dimensionalization and dimensionless parameters
  • Continuum mechanics: extending scalar continuum physics to vectors
  • Fluxes for vectors: tensors
  • Tensor calculus and subscript notation
  • The stress tensor and conservation of linear and angular momentum
  • Viscous flow
  • Principal strsses
  • Time permitting, elastic deformation

Labs

There are no labs for this course.

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