Dr Timothy Moroney

Research theme: Environment

Research discipline: Mathematical Sciences

Dr Moroney’s research interests are in the fields of computational mathematics and high performance computing. He has more than seven years of research experience in the field of computational mathematics, and more than ten years experience as a computer programmer, particularly in the
C++ programming language. Presently, Dr Moroney’s areas of focus are: flow in porous media, high performance computing, exponential integrators, fractional differential equations and high accuracy finite volume methods.

Flow in porous media
Dr Moroney has worked on a number of projects that involve the study of flow in porous media. One such ongoing project involves the modelling of groundwater flow and saltwater intrusion into the coastal aquifer system in the Coastal Burnett region of Queensland. More recently, Dr Moroney has become involved in a group investigating the self-combustion of bagasse (sugarcane) stockpiles in Queensland. In both of these projects, Dr Moroney has been heavily involved in the development of efficient, robust, two and three-dimensional computational models that can be used for computer simulation of these complex processes.

High performance computing
With his strong background in programming, Dr Moroney is a recognised leader in high performance computing within his research group. His most recent research in this area concerns hybrid CPU/GPU computing, with an emphasis on developing generic code that can run with maximal efficiency on either CPU or GPU hardware.

Exponential integrators
Recent research by Dr Moroney and others in QUT’s mathematics discipline has shown the potential for exponential integrators as an alternative to traditional methods for solving initial value problems. This cutting-edge work links with his research on GPU computing, where these methods show particular promise for achieving spectacular floating point performance.

Fractional differential equations
It is an increasingly common observation that traditional models for diffusion cannot capture all of the relevant behaviour of systems that exhibit anomalous diffusion. Fractional order models offer a means for capturing this behaviour more adequately, but the numerical methods are not as well
developed. Dr Moroney’s work in this area has been on numerical methods for solving time- and space-fractional differential equations accurately and efficiently.

High accuracy finite volume methods
Dr Moroney’s PhD was on high accuracy finite volume methods, and this area of research remains a key interest. Ongoing work in this area concerns the most effective way to introduce high-accuracy interpolation into a finite volume scheme, in order to accurately resolve gradients without requiring excessively fine meshes.