Multiphase flow simulation: state of the art (Prof. Stéphane Zaleski - Sorbonne Université, Paris)
Date: 12 APRIL 2022 from 17:30 to 19:00
Event location: Sala Rossa, Palazzo Marchesini, Via Marsala, 26 - Bologna - In presence and online event
Multiphase flows are the key to a large number of industrial processes, with much to do with energy and environment. Microfluidics often involves tiny droplets in micro-channels, and has applications to the drying of the GDL in PEMFC hydrogen fuelcells, to important biomedical engineering issues with encapsulated bubbles in the blood stream, and catalysis issues. At a larger scale, chemical engineering processes such as bubble columns, distillation, carbon capture, are limited by typical multiphase flow factors such as gas-liquid boundary layers or clogging. Fuel combustion in many applications such as aircraft, rocket or automotive engines involves spraying, a still poorly understood mechanism. At an event larger scale meteorite impact leads to the formation of tektites, tiny materials produced from droplet of molten rocks. All of these phenomena can be studied numerically using modern interface simulation techniques. VOF techniques developed in Paris and Bologna are gaining increasing acceptance as a reliable, mass-conserving technique. They are supplemented by other novel ideas, such as machine leaning using neural networks, fast molecular dynamics, octree grid adaptation, and further in the future, quantum computing.
The visit of Stéphane Zaleski is organized in collaboration with Ruben Scardovelli from the Department of Industrial Engineering.