Tyler Meadows (Queen’s)
Date
Tuesday December 5, 20239:30 am - 10:30 am
Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 319PDEs & Applications Seminar
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Time: 9:30 a.m. Place: Jeffery Hall, Room 319
Speaker: Tyler Meadows (Queen’s)
Title: Numerical methods for 1-D biofilm models
Abstract: Microbial biofilms are communities of microorganisms organized into thin sheets adhered to a surface, often in aqueous environments. Bacteria and other microbes can form biofilms as a method to avoid antibiotics, or otherwise alter their environment to be more favourable. A standard model of biofilm growth is due to Wanner and Gujer (1986). They assume the film to be uniform in directions parallel to the adherence surface, which allows the biofilm to be modeled as one-dimensional. I will review their model, and discuss some of the difficulties that arise when trying to find numerical solutions. Most of these difficulties appear when trying to solve for the nutrient concentrations within the biofilm.