Resolved Simulations of Particulate Flows

Alvin G. Anderson award ceremony: 2018-2019 award recipient - Vinicius Taguchi, PhD Student in Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering

Keynote Speaker: Andrea Prosperetti, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston

Abstract: New GPU-based computers and new algorithms now enable researchers to perform numerical simulations of particulate flows in which the particles are resolved and the hydrodynamic forces on them are obtained from first principles rather than correlations. One such method will be briefly outlined and then several applications described: kinematic waves and the statistics of various quantities in a fluidized-bed-like system, the behavior of tetrads (four-particle groups), the rotational dynamics and thermal wakes of particles immersed in an incident turbulent flow and others. This work will be placed in the context of existing methods and will be motivated by outlining some outstanding problems in this general area. The promises and obstacles of the paths opened by this general area of research will be described.

About the Speaker: Andrea Prosperetti is a Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, which he joined after 30+ years as CA Miller Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, where he still holds the title of Homewood Professor. He is also continuing his 20-year old part-time appointment as Berkhoff Professor of Applied Physics at the Universty of Twente in the Netherlands. Prosperetti's work is in the general area of multiphase flow: bubble dynamics and bubbly flows, particulate flows and applied mathematics. He is author or co-author of about 250 refereed journal papers and two books. He recently stepped down as editor in chief of the International Journal of Multiphase Flow, which he led for a decade. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.