Research Expertise

Prof. Groth heads the CFD and Propulsion group at UTIAS. He is a theoretical and computational fluid dynamicist with expertise in high-performance computing/parallel algorithm design, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), and finite-volume schemes for both compressible non-reacting and reactive flows. He also has expertise in the computation of non-equilibrium, rarefied, and magnetized flows, and the development of generalized transport models and solution methods following from kinetic theory. His numerical method research currently focuses on output-based anisotropic AMR for both steady and unsteady flows, high-order spatial and temporal discretization methods for flows with shocks, complexity reduction via moment closure methods, and data assimilation methods for performing data-driven simulations. He is currently pioneering the development and application of high-order and AMR methods for high-speed compressible flows of gases and plasmas, as well as reactive flows, and the formulation of accurate and robust moment closure techniques for describing a range of micro-physical transport phenomena in non-equilibrium, rarefied gases flows, as well as multi-phase flows associated with liquid fuel atomization and soot formation gas-turbine engines. He is also involved in fundamental numerical studies of laminar flames and the development of reliable and robust numerical techniques for performing large-eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent reactive flows. He has extensive experience in the simulation of gas-turbine combustor flows under high-pressure conditions through collaborative research efforts with industry partners, including Pratt & Whitney Canada, a leading manufacturer of aviation gas turbine engines.

Research Highlights

As a Visiting Professor for the MPhil Program in Scientific Computing, University of Cambridge, Prof. Groth will be delivering a lecture series on Moment Closures for Gas Kinetic Theory from March 31 - April 2, 2026. More information on this course can be found here.

Prof. Groth is one of four co-leads, including Profs. Masa Yano, Mary Pugh, and Aviad Levis, who were involved in establishing Bridging the Gap: From Computational Physics, to Physics-informed Machine Learning, to Data-driven Scientific Discovery as part of the Emerging Data Sciences Program of the University of Toronto Data Sciences Institute (DSI). Bridging the Gap brings together experts in numerical simulation and the data sciences to explore the intersection and bridge the gap between the first-principles physics-based modelling of science/engineering and the data-driven models of machine learning with a goal of achieving significantly improved predictive capabilities. More information on this program can be found here, including information on upcoming seminars and presentations.

Prof. Bart Ripperda of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) and Prof. Groth were recent recipients of a 2024-2026 XSeed Funding Grant from the University of Toronto to develop a new and powerful GPU-Accelerated Radiative General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics Toolkit on Cubed-Sphere Meshes for Plasma-Astrophysics for studying radiation from astrophysical systems. Please see the link found here for further details.

Prof. Groth gave an invited lecture on Maximum-Entropy Moment Methods as part of the von Karman Institute (VKI) Lecture Series on Advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics Methods for Hypersonic Flows (VKI-STO Lecture Series AVT-358) co-sponsored by VKI and the NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) and held at VKI in Belgium from March 25-29, 2024.


Research Group

Current Research Team, 2024

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Research Program

Link 1

Accurate, Robust, and Scalable Computational Methods for Large-Scale Simulations of Multi-Scale Physically-Complex Flows

Link 2

Numerical Modelling of Non-Equilibrium Gases and Plasmas


Link 3

Numerical Modelling of Aircraft Contrail Formation

Link 4

Numerical Modelling of Turbulent Hydrogen Flames for Aviation Gas-Turbine Engines


Link 5

Improved Numerical Combustion/Radiation Models for Predicting Laminar and Turbulent Sooting Flames

Link 6

Improved Numerical Models for Liquid Sprays in the Dense and Disperse Regimes


Link 7

Data-Driven Simulations of Heliospheric, Solar Wind, and Space Weather Phenomena

Link 8

LES of Hydrogen Deflagrations in Closed and Vented Vessels

Undergraduate and Graduate Courses