Prof. Zhu's research program is in the area of applied computational mathematics with biological applications. He is interested in numerical methods for and computer simulations of fundamental mechanical and/or biological processes which involve incompressible viscous fluids and elastic deformable boundaries. There are two major components of his research program: development of numerical methods for fluid-flexible-structure-interaction problems including extension/improvement of the immersed boundary (IB) method, and applications of these methods to problems in life science/ biomedical engineering.
Currently Prof. Zhu is working on 1) developing a 3D IB method using the lattice Boltzmann approach for turbulent biological flows with application; 2) modeling and simulation of blood flows in arteries with disease such as atherosclerosis.