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.
In our new Journal of Computational Physics paper, Vincent Poitier and coauthors develop a numerical method for flow through porous media as grains grow or dissolve. The simulations show how those changes reshape the pathways available to the fluid.
Kevin Zhao and Ram Sharma show how packing near the rim helps explain grain discharge across different aperture shapes. A video with Ram Sharma and Thomas Yu shows how cohesive grains move and break apart in a rotating drum.
A little water can hold grains together. In a video led by Jooyeon Park with Ram Sharma, Sreeram Rajesh and Alban Sauret, a turbulent air jet reveals how wet granular aggregates shed grains and break apart.
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.