Prato is to host a school and workshop on fluid-structure interactions. Co-ordinated by the Faculty of Engineering, international scientists will convene to discuss key areas of scientific interest. Invited speakers from  Japan, India, Australia, US and throughout Europe including UK, Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy and Romania will attend.

'Fluid-Structure Interactions' describes the forces and motions that result when a solid object is acted upon by a fluid.

This phenomenon occurs very often in practice. Physical scientists have recently become interested in describing this phenomenon on the microscopic and mesoscopic scales. For instance, blood flow in blood vessels is a perfect small-scale example of fluid-structure interaction.

Workshop convenor Ravi Jagadeeshan said what they're aim to develop a theoretical framework that enables the description of such interactions.

"To develop this framework, we need to understand the physics of the phenomenon. Only then can we design the appropriate computational algorithms that can be used to simulate it. To a large extent, the mathematical formulation is too complex for much progress to be made with only pencil and paper, and computers are almost inevitably required to solve these equations," Dr Jagadeeshan said.

"The aim of the workshop is to get a lot of people together who are approaching this problem from different directions, so that we can exchange notes, record progress, identify the challenges and plan the future course of action," Dr Jagadeeshan said.

More information is available from the conference website.