Brandon Dillon: Investigating the shape of water with mathematics

This story was written spring semester of 2018 by GRAD 5144 (Communicating Science) student Henrietta Bellman as part of an assignment to interview a classmate and write a news story about his research.

What are the physical processes of water that allow it to flow? How does it shape and curve its own course? How do the laws of physics dictate the movement of a solid object in a water stream?

    These are perhaps not questions most of us regularly consider. But Brandon Dillon, a PhD student at Virginia Tech who works with Dr. Kyle Strom in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, thinks about water a lot. 

    Dillon has always been captivated by water and now studies its movement. A Virginia native who grew up near Hampton, his watery connection began at an early age splashing around in the creek on his parent’s property and messing around on boats.  

    Dillon completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Virginia Tech, both in mechanical engineering, and then worked in industry, gaining industry experience in a variety of areas. Now, his PhD program allows him to engage in his love of fluid mechanics (how fluid and solid objects interact), academic mathematics, and his interest in the environment.

    "There is a lot that science doesn’t know," Dillon admits, "both large and small questions." The major unresolved problem in classical mechanics (think Newton!) is, Dillon states, how mathematically do fluids move? Simple enough, you might think, but it turns out to be incredibly complex. Along with colleagues in this field, Dillon is trying to address this in his PhD research.

    Dillon finds a cosmic beauty and intrigue in the fluid flow patterns that create environmental features such as mountains, dunes, and river gorges. He summarizes his main dissertation question this way: "How does the flow of the water inside a river create the shape of the river?"

    Scale is a big part of the answer. Dillon suggests that the minute internal flow of the water may explain how it shapes the thing it is contained by, a shape it can recreate. He uses high-speed photography with tracer particles to understand how the water in a river moves and interacts with objects within the river.

    Dillon admits there are challenges that come with this type of research. Often working at such a small scale can make monitoring these processes outside difficult. He has taken monitoring technologies used in the laboratory and applied them to a natural system, the New River–-a challenging and experimental task.

    Other challenges include finding funding to support his work. Less charismatic work in basic research, such as his, doesn’t have the same fiscal support as oil exploration and extraction or department of defence operations, he says.

      Why should this basic science receive funding? And why should we care?

    Dillon asks that we consider all the structures we build in or around a river: bridges, water intake structures for municipal water supplies, industries that require water, and more. The way river water flows can affect whether these structures remain stable or collapse because of erosion.

    Another application of his research could be understanding catastrophic storm events, which cause loss of human life and infrastructure damage. Pollutant spills--how the pollutants travel and where they end up--also are poorly understood because of our lack of basic scientific understanding in this area.

    Dillon’s research may help to address these real world problems. He hopes he can guide better construction practices to account for the movement of water by mathematically understanding it.

    The basic questions of this research drive his enthusiasm as he continues with his work. "The extent of our ignorance is breathtaking," he says--so let’s dive into science and learn more!

(Photos courtesy of Brandon Dillon)