June 2025: We have received new funding from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund to investigate the transport of fibers and anisotropic particles, such as microplastics, through porous media! Stay tuned for new cool results!
April 2025: Our new study, led by Sreeram Rajesh, has just been published in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. We explore the impact dynamics of droplets made of non-Brownian fiber suspensions on hydrophilic surfaces. Read the full article here.
April 2025: Our new article in Journal of Fluid Mechanics explores how impulsive motions generate diverse wave patterns. Led by Philippe Gondret and Cyprien Morize, and part of Wladimir Sarlin's PhD, the study reveals transitions from dispersive waves to slender jets when the piston acceleration nears gravity. Read the paper here.
March 2025: Our group presented some of our recent results at the APS Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, CA. Marc presented on the drag experienced by a sphere extruded from a granular medium. Alban discussed the extrusion of dense suspensions and self-filtering. Sreeram covered the impact and spreading of fiber suspension droplets. Ram presented on particle flux through apertures, and Kevin talked about the break-up of granular jets.
March 2025: Our new paper in PNAS shows how freezing rate controls the shape of air bubbles trapped in ice. Read the full study here.
February 2025: Our invited review article on controlling inter-particle adhesion in granular materials has been published in Soft Matter as part of the “Pioneering Investigators” themed collection. You can check out the article here. We cover experimental methods to tune cohesion, from powder handling to geophysical flows, and highlights key perspectives for future studies.
November 2024: Various talks from our group and collaborators throughout the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting this year. Come learn more about crater formation, nozzle clogging, granular jets, transport of fibers and an invited talk on clogging of suspensions!
November 2024: Our video for the 2024 Gallery of Fluid Motion, revisiting Doc Edgerton’s legendary drop‐impact experiments, is now online! Watch it here.
October 2024: Honored to receive the Reviewer Excellence 2024 Award from Physical Review Fluids in recognition of outstanding peer-review contributions. Learn more on the corresponding APS webpage.
September 2024: How does the angle of a nozzle influence the clogging of suspensions? Better to make it slender! Our study is out in Physical Review Research and could help guide the design of extrusion-based manufacturing systems. Read more the full article here. Bonus: this study has been covered in the newspaper Le Monde (in French) here.
September 2024: Thrilled to see two contributions from our group in the final selection of the photo competition "An Artistic Odyssey Through Science" showcasing results from scientific collaboration between French and US academics! More here.
September 2024: Just wrapped up an amazing (and intense) 2-week work-adventure in South Korea! From presenting our group’s work at ICTAM 2024, to visiting KAIST and Seoul National University. What a journey! As a bonus, I caught up with former PhD student Deok-Hoon (now at Samsung) and look forward to future collaborations!
Spring–Summer 2024: We are thrilled to host visiting French students again: Katy, Vincent, Guillaume, and Théophile. Welcome to our group!
March 2024: Congrats (now Dr.) Deok-Hoon Jeong for a great PhD defense. It has been great having you in our group for five years and we will miss you! Good luck with your next adventure in industry.
March 2024: Alban gave an Ocean Engineering seminar at UC Berkeley. Thanks to Evan Variano for the invitation and all the stimulating discussions!
March 2024: Sreeram's poster entry to the 2024 Gallery of Soft Matter is now online here. It highlights the complexity of the formation and impact of a drop of fiber suspensions... and Sreeram won the 2024 Gallery of Soft Matter Award! His work has been highlighted in Physics (here and on the UCSB ME website here.
March 2024: Sreeram, Virgile and Ben presented their work on granular media, clogging, and suspensions and Alban gave an invited talk on our work on capillary flow of suspensions
November 2023: Our group attended APS DFD in Washington, DC, presenting new results on fibers, particles, clogging, grains, and droplets. We also contributed to the Gallery of Fluid Motion 2023.
November 2023: Alban gave a seminar at Columbia University on clogging. Thanks all for a great day and many interesting discussions.
October 2023: Congrats Sreeram for winning for a second time the Mechanical Engineering Grad Slam at UCSB with a presentation about his work on fiber suspension! More coming soon
July 2023: Our study of the dip coating of fiber suspensions is now online in JCIS here! We looked at the conditions under which fibers are entrained on different substrates and how capillary effects can help align them.
June 2023: Our new study with colleagues at FAST Laboratory and ULRDA looks at the formation of a vortex ring when accelerating and decelerating a plate is now available in Physical Review Fluids here. Congrats Joanne for having led this work!
May 2023: We are happy to welcome two French visiting MS students: Raphael Bouguemari from ENS Paris-Saclay, who will work on the rheology of complex suspensions, and Remi Thomas from ENS Lyon, who will work on the transport of particles in millifluidic channels. Welcome!
April 2023: Alban gave the Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics seminar at Johns Hopkins University. It was a great visit (despite the rain) and nice to see all the projects carried out there! Thanks for the invitation.
April 2023: Our Physics Today clogging overview was highlighted by FYFD: The Physics of Clogging.
April 2023: Alban gave a colloquium in the Department of Physics at Georgetown University, presenting our work on clogging. Thanks for the invitation and the interactions! (and the bonus of having lunch at the French Embassy!)
March 2023: Our work on the viscoelastic regime in the thinning of polymer solutions has been featured in the Soft Matter Editorial Board Highlights of 2022 themed collection! Congratulations to Sreeram and Virgile for this great study! See also the UCSB ME news: Highlighting UCSB Soft Matter.
March 2023: Alban gave a seminar in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at George Washington University. It was a pleasure to visit and have many stimulating discussions and potential future collaborations!
March 2023: Our video entry to the 2023 Gallery of Soft Matter is available here. We show with Ben McMillan and Nathalie Vriend that photoelastic disks can measure inter-particle forces during clogging—and we won the 2023 Gallery of Soft Matter Award! See UCSB ME news here, APS article here, and Ars Technica here.
February 2023: Our poster entries to the 2022 Gallery of Fluid Motion were highlighted by FYFD: Beneath the Cavity and Frozen in Ice.
February 2023: Well-deserved pizza lunch after a long overdue lab cleaning!
February 2023: Whether it’s pipes, highways, or arteries that are clogged, stopping the flow is always inconvenient and sometimes dangerous. Our outreach article on clogging has been published in Physics Today: Clogging: The self-sabotage of suspensions, and featured on the cover of the issue.
January 2023: Welcome to Joanne Steiner, visiting PhD student from FAST Laboratory (University of Paris-Saclay/CNRS, France). Joanne will study the erosion of cohesive granular materials. Welcome, Joanne!
December 2022: Our video on the generation of impulse waves by a translating piston was featured in FYFD: Classifying Waves. Congratulations to Wladimir for the great visuals!
December 2022: The NSF has highlighted our work on the rheology of mudflow in “Physics of disaster: How mudslides move.” Read their article here.
November 2022: Alban’s presentation “And yet it clogs: bridging of suspensions in constricted channels” at APS DFD 2022 was featured by APS press: Scientists to tackle ‘world’s grand challenges’.
November 2022: “Kaleidoscope of impulse waves” video highlights the range of wave regimes generated by a translating piston. Watch it here.
October 2022: The KITP program Multiphase Flows in Geophysics and the Environment starts next door. Looking forward to discussions with visitors!
October 2022: Collaborative work on jamming in natural debris flows published in PNAS: here.
October 2022: Welcome Ben McMillan, visiting PhD student from the University of Cambridge (UK), advised by Nathalie Vriend, to work on clogging of photoelastic disks..
October 2022: Deok-Hoon et al. address liquid film coatings with suspensions in Soft Matter: here.
September 2022: Plop! Pinch-off dynamics of an air bubble in a viscoelastic fluid studied by Sreeram, Sumukh, and Virgile in J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech.: here.
September 2022: We had a great time at EFMC14 in Athens! Nathan presented clogging in millichannels and Virgile on ligament atomization of suspensions. Bonus: amazing reception!
September 2022: Alban was invited to FAST Laboratory (University of Paris-Saclay/CNRS, France) for collaborations and gave seminars at FAST and SIMM/ESPCI. Bonus: recorded GFM video footage!
August 2022: How dilute is enough to prevent clogging? Nathan and Sacha’s Soft Matter study on suspension dilution and bridging: here.
June 2022: Two high-school students joined via the UCSB Research Mentorship Program (RMP): Kate Jang with Sreeram on biocohesive settling and Steven Amanat with Ram on dust cleaning. Welcome!
June 2022: Deok-Hoon’s Gallery of Fluid Motion 2021 poster was highlighted by FYFD: Particle-Filled Coatings.
May 2022: Alban gave the Fluid Mechanics Seminar at Stanford University, presenting our work on capillary flows of suspensions. Thank you for the stimulating interactions!
May 2022: Brilliant PhD defense by (now Dr.) Brian Dincau, the first UCSB-based student in our group (co-advised with Emilie Dressaire)!
April/May 2022: We are excited to host two visiting MS students: Jules Tampier (ENS Lyon/IPGP) on drop-impact erosion and Sebastien Kuchly (ESPCI) on millifluidic clogging. Welcome both!
April 2022: Congrats to Sreeram and Virgile on their Soft Matter study of the transition between Newtonian and viscoelastic regimes during droplet formation of polymer solutions: here.
April 2022: Our group was present at the 15th Southern California Flow Physics Symposium at UCLA!
April 2022: Two visiting PhD students joined: Wladimir Sarlin (FAST, Paris-Saclay) on cohesive granular flow and Simon Brient (IJLRDA, Sorbonne) on drop impact in films. Welcome!
April 2022: Virgile’s PNAS article “The onset of heterogeneity in the pinch-off of suspension drops” is out. Non-specialist coverage by UCSB’s Harrison Tasoff: here.
November 2021: Virgile’s Gallery of Fluid Motion video on viscous compound filaments won the Milton Van Dyke award. Coverage in Physics: Complex Droplets and Interacting Bubbles Receive Video Prize.
November 2021: The group was present at APS DFD 2021 in Phoenix, AZ. Great to resume in-person conferences and congrats to all for amazing presentations! Looking forward to DFD 2022.
October 2021: In-person seminars are back! Alban presented our capillary suspension work at USC and UC Riverside. Thank you for the stimulating discussions!
October 2021: Sreeram’s ME Grad Slam talk on complex fluids won first place! Congratulations, Sreeram!
September 2021: Two new students joined the group! Nathan Vani (ENS Paris-Saclay) will work on particle flow and clogging in confined systems. Ram Sharma (Clark University) is an incoming PhD student. Welcome both!
July 2021: Our work on wave generation by granular collapse has been featured by UCSB: The Science of Tsunamis, and by Journal of Fluid Mechanics: Making Waves in the Lab.
July 2021: Sumukh just joined the group as a visiting student from BITS Pilani – Hyderabad Campus. He will be with us for six months. Welcome, Sumukh!
June 2021: Wladimir’s experiments describing wave regimes generated by granular collapse into water are on the Journal of Fluid Mechanics cover! Paper available here.
June 2021: Thrilled to see our study on droplet detachment and pinch-off of bidisperse particulate suspensions in Physical Review Fluids: Droplet detachment and pinch-off of bidisperse particulate suspensions.
June 2021: How do particles modify drop formation and pinch-off, and what is the role of polydispersity? Virgile and Sreeram’s new study in Soft Matter: Droplet detachment and pinch-off of bidisperse particulate suspensions.
April 2021: Alban gave a fluid seminar at Brown University on our lab’s capillary flows of complex fluids. It was a pleasure to “remotely visit” and have so many stimulating discussions.
April 2021: How does a granular jet cross an air/liquid interface and enter water? Collaboration with Pierre Jop and Guillaume Saingier in Journal of Fluid Mechanics: Falling jet of dry granular material in water.
April 2021: Our group was (remotely) present at the 14th Southern California Flow Physics Symposium, presenting projects on pinch-off of viscoelastic suspensions (Virgile), droplet formation in bidisperse suspensions (Sreeram), erosion by turbulent jets (Jerry), and capillary deposition in tubes (Deok-Hoon).
February 2021: Alban gave an invited talk at Hong Kong University on our capillary micromanipulation of particles.
December 2020: Alban presented our capillary suspension studies at the Southern California Fluid Dynamics Seminar Series.
December 2020: Alban gave an invited seminar at the Cornell Fluid Seminar Series on grain entry into water. Great discussions with fluid dynamics researchers!
November 2020: At the APS DFD 2020 “Kitchen Flows” mini-symposium, we presented our first insights into mixing grains and liquid.
November 2020: Deok-Hoon, Hadis, Mingze, Guillaume and Sivar presented remotely at APS DFD 2020 on:
- Particle deposition in a capillary tube during suspension translation
- Drop impact on immersed granular beds
- Erosion of cohesive granular materials by turbulent jets
- Drag on confined porous aggregates
- Erosion by oscillating foils
November 2020: Our paper on tsunami waves generated by granular collapse into water is online in Journal of Fluid Mechanics: Experimental investigation of tsunami waves generated by granular collapse into water.
November 2020: Deposition of particle-laden films on tube walls published in Physical Review Fluids: Deposition of a particle-laden film on the inner wall of a tube.
September 2020: We welcome our new postdoc, Virgile, tackling projects in fluid mechanics and soft matter. Exciting results ahead!
May 2020: Despite COVID, we’re thrilled to host two remote interns, Anezka Kvasnickova (ESPCI, France) and Guillaume Grosjean (Polytech Montpellier), for numerical porous-media projects. Welcome!
May 2020: Our JFM paper on fibre dip-coating by suspensions is online: Entrainment of particles during the withdrawal of a fibre from a dilute suspension.
April 2020: Our Physical Review Fluids study on how particles modify droplet spreading and fragmentation: Spreading and fragmentation of particle-laden liquid sheets.
April 2020: Honored to receive the NSF CAREER Award for investigations of capillary effects and interfaces in suspensions, and associated educational programs. Read more in The Current.
January 2020: Our capillary filtration and sorting research featured by UCSB Engineering: article.
November 2019: Our group presented at APS DFD 2019 in Seattle on capillary sorting, dip coating, and cohesive grain flows.
September 2019: Congratulations to Brian for receiving the Department of Mechanical Engineering Best TA Award!
April 2019: We co-organized the 13th Southern California Flow Physics Symposium (SoCal Fluids XIII) at UCSB. Thanks to all participants!
February 2019: Alban gave a seminar at UC San Diego on multiphase blending of liquid and grains. Thank you for a great visit!
December 2018: Our Soft Matter paper on dip-coating of suspensions reports three regimes—pure liquid, heterogeneous, and homogeneous films—and maps their domains of existence: Dip coating of suspensions.
November 2018: At APS DFD 2018 in Atlanta we presented work on granular entry into water, microchannel clogging, and multiphase bubbling. We also contributed to the Gallery of Fluid Motion:
