J Austral Math Soc Ser B 38 pp101--125, 1996.
(Received 17 June 1994; revised 31 January 1995)
Taylor's model of dispersion simply describes the long-term spread of material along a pipe, channel or river. However, often we need multi-mode models to resolve finer details in space and time. Here we construct zonal models of dispersion via the new principle of matching their long-term evolution with that of the original problem. Using centre manifold techniques this is done straightforwardly and systematically. Furthermore, this approach provides correct initial and boundary conditions for the zonal models. We expect the proposed principle of matched centre manifold evolution to be useful in a wide range of modelling problems.
Last Modified: Mon Dec 10 14:02:18 2001