Computational Forensics for Airplane Crash Investigation

Abstract

In this talk, the speaker will discuss how to use large-scale scientific computation to conduct event-reconstruction and forensics for airplane crashes. The methodologies and tools involved are mathematical modeling, algorithm development and supercomputing. Four cases of airplane crashes will be discussed:

• Malaysia Airlines missing Flight MH370
• Germanwings Flight 9525 pulverizing crash
• Dallo Airlines Flight 159 laptop bombing
• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 missile-shotdown

Video animations based on supercomputing results obtained at TAMU's High Performance Research Computing Center (HPRC) will be given, along with discussions.

Speaker's Bio

Goong Chen was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1950. He received his BSc (Math) from the National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan in 1972 and PhD (Math) from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1977. He has taught at the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1977–78), and the Pennsylvania State University at University Park (1978–1987). Since 1987, he has been Professor of Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering, and (since 2000) a member of the Institute for Quantum Studies,at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He has also held visiting positions at INRIA in Rocquencourt, France, Centre de Recherche Mathematiques of the Universite de Montreal, theTechnical University of Denmark in Lyngby, Denmark, the National University of Singapore, and National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu,Taiwan. He has research interests in many areas of applied and computational mathematics: control theory for partial differential equations (PDEs), boundary element methods and numerical solutions of PDEs, engineering mechanics, chaotic dynamics, quantum computation, chemical physics and quantum mechanics. He has written over one hundred and forty papers, seven advanced texts/monographs, and co-edited four books. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, and has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Chapman & Hall/CRC Press Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Science Series (2002-2011), and as Associate Editor for several other editorial boards, including the SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, the International Journal on Quantum Information, Physica Scripta, and the Electronic Journal of Differential Equations. He is also a co-holder of a U.S. Patent on certain quantum circuit design for quantum computing. He has memberships in the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). His last book, “Chaotic Maps: Dynamics, Fractals and Rapid Fluctuations”, 227 pages, coauthored with Y. Huang, was published by Morgan & Claypool, Williston, Vermont, in November 2011. He is presently preparing a new book on computational fluid dynamics and turbulence modeling.