This note describes a simple numerical method for solution of the lifting surface integral equation of aerodynamics, and provides benchmark computations of up to 7 figure accuracy for flat rectangular wings of arbitrary aspect ratio. The nature of the large aspect ratio limit is also investigated numerically and asymptotically. This enables determination of the limiting behaviour near the wing tips, which is compared to the predictions of lifting line theory. Generalisations to non-rectangular wings are discussed.

We discuss a model of a burning process, essentially due to Sal'nikov, in which a substrate undergoes a two-stage decay through some intermediate chemical to form a final product. The second stage of the process occurs at a temperature-sensitive rate, and is also responsible for the production of heat. The effects of thermal conduction are included, and the intermediate chemical is assumed to be capable of diffusion through the decomposing substrate. The governing equations thus form a reaction-diffusion system, and spatially inhomogeneous behaviour is therefore possible.

This paper is concerned with stationary patterns of temperature and chemical concentration in the model. A numerical method for the solution of the governing equations is outlined, and makes use of a Fourier-series representation of the pattern. The question of the stability of these patterns is discussed in detail, and a linearised solution is presented, which is valid for patterns of very small amplitude. The results of accurate solutions to the fully non-linear equations are discussed, and compared with the predictions of the linearised theory. Parameter regions in which there exists genuine nonuniqueness of solutions are identified.

The hodograph method for flow in porous media is used to study the problem of simultaneous gas and water cresting towards a horizontal well in a thin oil column reservoir. Shapes of the free interfaces are found and an expression for the optimal placement of the well with respect to the interfaces is given. In addition, a numerical technique is used to find the shape of the free interface and values of critical heights for the case of water cresting towards a horizontal well beneath an impermeable plane.

A pair of multi-objective programming problems is shown to be symmetric dual by associating a vector-valued infinite game to the given pair. This symmetric dual pair seems to be more general than those studied in the literature.

An improved model of water cresting towards horizontal wells is presented, using a hodograph solution to the lateral edge drive model with a constant potential boundary at a finite outer radius. In this model, the water crest tends to a horizontal asymptote far from the well, correcting previous approaches which led to the unphysical result of a crest which never levels off but, rather, tends to a parabolic curve. The hodograph solution yields the shape of the free water-oil interface. It also yields integral representations for the lengths of boundary segments, and these have enabled the derivation of an explicit expression for the critical rate in terms of the outer radius. The critical rates calculated using the improved model do not differ significantly from those calculated using previous approaches. The main advantage of the model, therefore, is not a correction to the quantitative predictions of the critical rate, but the removal of physical inconsistencies in the underlying theory.

Various initial and boundary value problems for a 2-dimensional reaction-diffusion equation are studied numerically by an explicit Finite Difference Method (FDM), a Galerkin and a Petrov-Galerkin Finite Element Method (FEM). The results not only show the transition processes from different local initial disturbances to quasitravelling waves, but also demonstrate the long term behaviour of the solutions, which is determined by the system itself and does not depend on the details of the initial disturbances.

In this paper we shall describe a numerical method for the solution of curve flow problems in which the normal velocity of the curve depends locally on the position, normal and curvature of the curve. The method involves approximating the curve by a number of line elements (segments) which are only allowed to move in a direction normal to the element. Hence the normal of each line element remains constant throughout the evolution. In regions of high curvature elements naturally tend to accumulate. The method easily deals with the formation of cusps as found in flame propagation problems and is computationally comparable to a naive marker particle method. As a test of the method we present a number of numerical experiments related to mean curvature flow and flows associated with flame propagation and bushfires.