Our group focuses on developing a fundamental understanding of multiphase systems involved in environmental science, industrial applications, and sustainable processes.
We tackle various engineering challenges such as environmentally sustainable processes, water remediation, industrial methods, smart coatings, and natural hazards assessment. Our findings also aim to improve current engineering methods, making them more energy-efficient, or develop new approaches.
Using tools from fluid mechanics, soft matter, and heat transfer, we study complex materials such as suspensions of particles, immiscible fluid mixtures, droplets, polymers, and phase change processes. To unravel the complex dynamics at different length and time scales, we rely on a range of experimental methods that combine high-speed imaging, rheological measurements, PIV, particle tracking, microfluidics, and heat transfer measurements. We supplement our observations with numerical modeling and theoretical analysis to understand the mechanisms at play and describe multiphase systems.
We enjoy working in an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment combining tools from engineering, chemistry, physics, and geophysics. Applications include sustainable processes, water and environmental systems, advanced manufacturing, and energy.
Capillarity, wetting, thin films, and coatings.
Particles in motion: dry, wet, and cohesive media.
Complex fluids in nozzles, jets, and threads.
Transport, clogging, and filtration in confined flows.
Ram Sharma won the Mechanical Engineering Grad Slam at UCSB with a sharp, engaging talk on his work in granular materials. Congrats, Ram!
Our review in Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics co-written with Tyler Ray and Brett Compton is out. We outline some fluid mechanics challenges in DIW: extrudability and clogging, filament stability, and post-deposition spreading, slumping, and buckling.
The program supports bold, curiosity-driven experimental research. Our group will study the formation of debris flow. We are grateful for the Foundation’s support and excited for what comes next.
We welcome curious students and postdocs interested in developing new experiments, motivated by curiosity-driven ideas and with a taste in modeling complex phenomena. Send a short email with your CV, interests, and a few lines on what you want to study.