School of Physical Sciences Organises Seminar

The School of Physical Sciences under the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences (CANS) has held its third seminar for the semester. The third seminar, held at the Faculty of Arts Conference Room, was on the theme " Reiterated Homogenisation Applied in Hydrodynamic Lubrication." Speaking at the seminar, a lecturer at the Department of Mathematics, Prof. Emmanuel K. Essel, noted that Homogenisation is a branch within mathematics that involves the study of Partial Differential Equations (PDE's) with rapidly oscillating coefficients. He said the main purpose of Homogenisation is to Approximate PDE's that easily lend themselves to numerical treatment in a computer. Prof. Essel stressed that Reynolds type of equation were widely used in the field of Tribology. According to him, Tribology deals with lubrication, wear prevention and friction control in machines, adding that " Tribological studies enables lubrication engineers to minimize cost of moving parts thereby producing more efficient, more reliable and more effective machine." He explained that, in the field of Hydrodynamic lubrication, the flow of fluid through machine elements such as bearings, gear boxes and hydraulic systems may be governed by the Reynolds equation. The mathematics don pointed out that equations were often used in analysing the influence of texture and surface roughness on the Hydrodynamic performance of different machine elements when a lubricant was flowing through it.