Professor Xue-Feng YUAN

XUE-FENG YUAN PhD CPhys FInstP FRSC Dean Advanced Institute of Engineering Science for Intelligent Manufacturing Guangzhou University Guangzhou, P. R. China.

       Yuan Xuefeng, a famous Rheology expert, born in China in June 1963, Doctor of Science, Professor II, professor, Fellow of the British Physical Society and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). Moreover, he is the vice-chairman of the Rheology Committee of the Chinese Society of Mechanics, vice-chairman of the Rheology Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society, China representative of the International Society of Rheology, member of the Physical Gas Dynamics Committee of the Chinese Society of Aerodynamics, executive Director of Guangdong Computer Society. Furthermore, in the International Multilateral Science and Technology Cooperation Organization, he is the Chief Coordinator of the BRICS ICT and HPC Center for Innovation Cooperation and a member of the Expert Committee on the work mechanism of China with the BRICS new industrial partnership, UN project leader for the Asia-Pacific hub for Information revolution innovation.

       Professor Yuan was awarded an ORS Fellowship from the UK government and a post-graduate fellowship from the University of Manchester. He studied chemistry at the University of Manchester from 1986 to 1989 (at his own expense) and received a doctorate in science in December 1989. From 2006 to 2012, he served as the permanent director of the British Rheology Society and editor-in-chief of the British Rheology newsletter In 1996, he was awarded the EPSRC Senior Fellowship, a prestigious International Fellowship for the development of future leaders in the fields of engineering and mathematical sciences, he was also invited to be a member of EPSRC’s expert group on the assessment and assessment of applications for funds in the fields of physics, materials science, processing technology and anti-terrorist crime technology. He has been invited to serve as a member of the MRC’s cross-disciplinary Grant Review Panel and a member of the peer review panel for many SCI chemical physics and rheology journals.

       He has served as an examiner for doctoral dissertations in University of Cambridge, Warwick, University of Sheffield, Swansea and Cardiff University. Apart from it, Professor Yuan was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of University of Cambridge Physics and the Centre for condensed matter theoretical physics in the Cavendish Laboratory. Prof. Edwards; Visiting Researcher and visiting lecturer in the Department of Applied Physics, Nagoya University, Japan (Kaka Corporation, Japan). He was a senior research fellow and professor at EPSRC, Centre for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, University of Bristol, and a senior research fellow and professor at EPSRC, Department of Mechanical Engineering, King’s College, University of London, the Centre for interdisciplinary biology at the University of Manchester, Professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering and analytical sciences, and biochemical physics Reader. Moreover, he was a visiting researcher in the polymer physics key laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Chemistry Institute. And he was a visiting professor in the Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Japan. Recommended by National Sun Yat-sen University and National University of Defense Technology on 6 October 2013, the leading group on the construction of the Guangzhou Super-computing Centre has agreed to appoint Professor Yuan Xuefeng as Director of the National Super-computing Center in Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ) and an independent legal person of the public welfare institutions of Guangzhou Municipality. After receiving the notice, he resolutely resigned from his tenure at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom and returned home to serve full-time, to preside over the formation, development planning, establishment of National Super-computing Center in Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ), market development, technical services, application and popularization of the concept of “National Super-computing Center in Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ)”; Significant results have been achieved in deploying, validating, and developing parallel computing applications on “Tianhe-2” systems, as well as in related international collaboration. On 2 March 2016, after the Guangzhou municipal government handed over the management of the CMC to the National Sun Yat-sen University and abolished the independent legal body of the CMC, the director of the CMC stepped down. The short and fruitful history of National Super-computing Center in Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ) has provided useful experience for market-based supercomputer systems, it also laid a solid foundation for the sustainability of its successor, the National Sun Yat-sen University National Super-computing Center in Guangzhou (NSCC-GZ).

RESEARCH PROFILE

By taking systems rheology approach we are able to understand and to predict the equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties of soft matter and complex fluids from the microscopic level, and to develop novel applications in biomedical and bioprocessing. Miniaturization of desktop rheometer into Rheo-chip platform is of significance to high throughput analysis of formulation design and processing control of materials using very small amount of samples. Parallel computing codes for large scale simulations of complex fluids will facilitate digital design of fluid formulations and manufacturing processes for a wide range of industrial applications such as additive manufacturing (3D printing), high-speed fiber spinning and coating, drug delivery, lubrication, adhesion, spraying, painting, microchip production, manufacture of high-energy lithium batteries and photovoltaic cells, photographic products and biocompatible products, extraction of oil from porous rock and others, production of biomass and geothermal energy, hence they play a key role in the third industrial revolution.

√On experimental rheology, designed, and successfully led a research team that constructed and validated a unique Rheo-chip rheometer (prototype) which can access deformation rate up to 106 s-1 and frequency up to 100 Hz (PCT/GB2011/051476). The already achieved technical specifications are at least one or two orders of magnitude higher than those of commercial rheometers, and with further benefit of minimum inertial effect. Such a miniaturised rheometer uses tiny amount (less than 500 microliter) of sample, has higher sensitivity and better performance, and is suitable for high throughput rheological characterisation under shear flow, extensional flow and industrial benchmark flow problems. It also has an optical window for in-situ probing structure evolution of complex fluids under various flow conditions.

√In computational and theoretical rheology,  1) developed a framework to fully integrate our novel Lagrangian-Eulerian strategy for modelling complex fluid flows, finite volume methods (with high order discrete schemes), discrete Boltzmann method, smooth particle hydrodynamics method, immersed boundary method, coarse-grained meso-dynamic method with a unified molecular theory, non-equilibrium molecular dynamics into a multiple scale (open sourced C++) simulation platform for extra-large scale parallel modelling of strongly correlated dynamics of soft matter and complex fluids in multi-core parallel computing environment. It will be fully integrated with the Rheo-chip platform for digital manufacturing from molecular and formulation design to processing optimisation; 2) proposed a novel method to solve viscoelastic fluid flow using the lattice Boltzmann method. It opens a new door for multiple scale parallel computing of nonlinear dynamics of complex fluids and beyond; 3) proposed a comprehensive two-fluid model to study strong coupling between dynamics of phase transitions and viscoelastic fluid flow and developed efficient flow solver for carrying out predictive modelling of binary polymer blends under strong flow conditions, hence successfully reproduced the generic feature of the shear-induced phase transitions observed in complex fluids, and for the first time, revealed a direct correlation between microstructural evolution in complex fluids and the rheological response, and thus reveal the dynamic pathway of phase transition under flow and allow prediction of the morphology of solidified materials.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN THE RECENT YEARS:

1.Y-Q Fan, A. Lanzaro and X-F. Yuan, "Transit shear banding of polymer solutions and concentration effects". In preparation.

2.   M. Ye, Y-Q Fan, X-F. Yuan, "Deep learning molecular parameters of viscoelastic constitutive models by solving inverse problems", Under review.

3.   Y-Q Fan, H. H. Winter, G-X Xu, C-Q Li, X-F. Yuan, "Time-concentration superposition on linear viscoelasticity of polymer solutions", Under review.

4.   Y-Q Fan, A. Lanzaro and X-F. Yuan, "Universal concentration scaling on rheometric properties of polydisperse and high molecular weight polyacrylamide aqueous solutions", Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-022-2757-6 (in press).

5.  A.Lanzaro and X-F. Yuan, "A microfluidic prototype for high-frequency", large strain oscillatory flow rheometry, Micromachines 2022, 13, 256. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi13020256

6.   X-P Kong, J-M Wu, X-C Chen, Y-C Chen, Xin Zhou, J-S Feng, J-Q Chen, Z-P Li, R-F Meng, X-F Yuan. "Operation Environment Emulator and Digital Twin Platform Interim Inspection Report", 2021, 12.

7.   X-P Kong, J-M Wu, X-C Chen, Y-C Chen, Xin Zhou, J-S Feng, J-Q Chen, Z-P Li, R-F Meng, X-F Yuan. "Operation Environment Emulator and Digital Twin Platform Interim Inspection Report Technical Progress Report in 2021", 2021, 11.

8.  A.Lanzaro, A. Roche, N. Sibanda, D. Corbett, P. Davis, M. Shah, J. A. Pathak, S. Uddin, C. F. van der Walle,X-F. Yuan, "A. Pluen and R. Curtis, Cluster percolation causes shear thinning behaviour in concentrated solutions of monoclonal antibodies", Molecular Pharmaceutics, 18, 7, 2669–2682, 2021.

9.   M-Y. Luo, J. Xu, S. Lv, X-F. Yuan and X. Liang, "Enhanced Thermal Insulation and Flame-Retardant Properties of Polyvinyl Alcohol-Based Aerogels Composited with Ammonium Polyphosphate and Chitosan", International Journal of Polymer Science, Volume 2021, Article ID 5555916, https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5555916.

10.  X-C Chen, Y-H Liu, X-P Kong, Y-C Zhang, J-M Wu, Z-P Li, Y-X Li, Xin Zhou, Xiao Yang, X-F Yuan. "Operation Environment Emulator and Digital Twin Platform Interim Inspection Report Technical Progress Report in 2020", Special Annual Technical Progress Report of Ministry of Science and Technology in 2020.

11.  A.Lanzaro, D. Corbett, X-F. Yuan. "Non-linear Dynamics of semi-dilute PAAm Solutions in a Microfluidic 3D Cross-slot Flow Geometry". J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 242, 57-65 (2017).

12.  Y. Wang, F. Serracino-Inglott, X. Yi, X. Yang, X-F. Yuan. "An Interactive Computer-based Simulation System for Endovascular Aneurysm Repair Surgeries[J]". Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 27, 290-300 (2016).

13.  Y. Wang, F. Serracino-Inglott, X. Yi, X-F. Yuan and X. Yang, "Real-time Simulation of Catheterization in Endovascular Surgeries", Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 27, 185-194 (2016).

14.  W. Yi, D. Corbett and X-F. Yuan, "An improved-Rhie-Chow interpolation scheme for the smoothed-interface immersed boundary method", International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, 82(11), 770-795 (2016).

15.  W. Yi, D. Corbett and X-F. Yuan, "A sharp-interface Cartesian grid method for viscoelastic fluid flow in complex geometry", J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 234, 82-104 (2016).

16.  Y. Cao, W. Yang, X-W. Guo, X. Xu, J. Chen, X. Yang and X-F. Yuan, "Role of Non-monotonic Constitutive Curves in Extrusion Instabilities", International Journal of Polymer Science, Vol.2015, DOI:10.1155/2015/312839, 8 pages (2015).

17.  W Yang, W. Yi, X Ren, L. Xu, X. Xu and X-F. Yuan, “Toward large scale parallel computer simulation of viscoelastic fluid flow: a study of benchmark flow problems”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 222, 82-95 (2014), DOI: 10.1016/j.jnnfm.2014.09.004.

18.  T. Hodgkinson, X-F. Yuan and A. Bayat, “Electrospinning silk fibroin fiber diameter influences in vitro dermal fibroblast behaviour and promotes healing of ex vivo wound models”, Journal of Tissue Engineering, 5, 1-13(2014), DOI: 10.1177/2041731414551661.

19.  X-W. Guo, S. Zou, X. Yang, X-F. Yuan, M. Wang, “Interface instability and chaotic rheological responses in binary polymer mixtures under shear flow”, RSC Advances, 4, 61167-61177 (2014).

20.  A.Lanzaro, Z. Li, X-F. Yuan, “Quantitative characterisation of high molecular weight polymer solutions in microfluidic hyperbolic contraction flow”, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 1-10(2014), DOI: 10.1007/s10404-014-1474-z.

21.  S. Zou, X-F. Yuan, X. Yang, W. Yi and X. Xu, “An integrated lattice Boltzmann and finite volume method for the simulation of nonlinear viscoelastic fluid flows”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 211, 99-113 (2014).

22.  T. Hodgkinson, Y. Chen, A. Bayat and X-F. Yuan, “Rheology and electrospinning of regenerated Bombyx mori silk fibroin aqueous solutions”, Biomacromolecules, 15(4), 1288-1298 (2014).

23.  A.Lanzaro, X-F. Yuan, “A quantitative analysis of spatial extensional rate distribution in nonlinear viscoelastic flows”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 207, 32-41 (2014).

24.  S.C. Omowunmi and X-F. Yuan, “Time-dependent nonlinear dynamics of polymer solutions in microfluidic contraction flow – A numerical study on the role of elongational viscosity”, Rheologica Acta, 52, 337-354 (2013).

25.  X-F. Yuan, “Rheometry Apparatus”, Patent Application No. 1013044.1 (2010), PCT/GB2011/051476 (2011) and WO2012/017246 A2 (2012).

26.  L. Wang, H. Xie, X. Qiao, A. Goffin, T. Hodgkinson, X-F. Yuan, K. Sun and G. G. Fuller; “Interfacial rheology of natural silk fibroin at air/water and oil/water interfaces”, Langmuir, 22, 459-467 (2011).

27.  A.Lanzaro, X-F. Yuan, “Effects of the contraction ratio on non-linear dynamics of semi-dilute highly polydisperse PAAm solutions in microfluidics”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 166, 1064-1075 (2011).

28.  Z. Li, X-F. Yuan, S. Haward, J. Odell and S. Yeates, “Non-linear dynamics of semi-dilute polydisperse polymer solutions in microfluidics: effects of flow geometry”, Rheologica Acta, 50, 277-290 (2011).

29.  Z. Li, X-F. Yuan, S. Haward, J. Odell and S. Yeates, “Non-linear dynamics of semi-dilute polydisperse polymer solutions in microfluidics: a study of benchmark flow problem”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 166, 951-963 (2011).

30.  S. Haward, Z. Li, D Lighter, B. Thomas, J. Odell, X-F. Yuan, “Flow of dilute to semi-dilute polystyrene solutions through a benchmark 8:1 planar abrupt micro-contraction”, J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 165, 1654-1669 (2010).

31.  S. Haward, J. Odell, Z. Li, X-F. Yuan, “The rheology of polymer solution elastic strand in extensional flow”, Rheologica Acta, 49, 781-788 (2010).

32.  S. Haward, J. Odell, Z. Li, X-F. Yuan, “Extensional rheology of dilute polymer solutions in oscillatory cross-slot flow: the transient behaviour of birefringent strands”, Rheologica Acta, 49, 633-645 (2010).

33.  S.C. Omowunmi and X-F. Yuan, “Modelling the three-dimensional flow of a semi-dilute polymer solution in microfluidics – on the effect of aspect ratio”, Rheologica Acta, 49, 585-595 (2010).

34.  G. O. Aloku and X-F. Yuan, “Numerical simulation of polymer foaming process in extrusion flow”, Chemical Engineering Science, 65, 3749-3761 (2010).

35.  K. Sato, X-F. Yuan and T. Kawakatsu, “Why does shear banding behave like first-order phase transitions? Derivation of a potential from a mechanical constitutive model”, European Physical Journal E, 31, 135-144 (2010).

36.  T. Hodgkinson, X-F. Yuan and A. Bayat, “Adult stem cells in tissue engineering”, Expert Review of Medical Devices, 6, 621-640 (2009).

37.  C. Sobajo, F. Behzad, X-F. Yuan, A. Bayat, “Silk: a potential medium for tissue engineering”, ePlasty: Open Access Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery”, 8, 438-446 (2008).

38.  Kelarakis, V. Havredaki, X-F. Yuan, C. Chaibundit and C. Booth, “Aqueous gels of triblock copolymers of ethylene oxide and 1,2-butylene oxide (type BEB) studied by rheometry”, Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics, 207, 903-909 (2006).

39.  D. Mistry, T. Annable, X-F. Yuan, C. Booth, “Rheological behaviour of aqueous micellar solutions of a triblock copolymers of ethylene oxide and 1,2-butylene oxide: B10E410B10, Langmuir, 22, 2986-2992 (2006).

40.  R Pathansali, A A Mangoni, B. Creagh-Brown, Z.C. Lan, G.L. Ngow, X-F. Yuan, E L Ouldred, R Sherwood, C.G. Swift, S H D Jackson, "Effects of folic acid supplementation on psychomotor performance and blood rheology in healthy elderly subjects", Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 43, 127-137 (2006).

41.  X. Shan, X-F. Yuan, H. Chen, "Kinetic representation of hydrodynamics: A way beyond the Navier-Stokes equation", J. Fluid Mech., 550, 413-441 (2006).

42.  S. Lacey, T. P. Ford, X-F. Yuan, M. Sherriff and T. Watson, “The effect of temperature on viscosity of root canal sealers”, International Endodontic Journal, 39, 860-866 (2006).

43.  J.Y. Lee, G.G. Fuller, N. Hudson and X-F. Yuan, "Investigation of shear bands in worm-like micellar solution by point-wise flow-induced birefringence measurement", J. of Rheology, 49, 537-550 (2005).

44.  V. Castelletto, I. W. Hamley, X-F. Yuan, A. Kelarakis and C. Booth, "Structure and rheology of aqueous micellar gels formed from an associative triblock poly(oxybutylene)-poly(oxyethylene)-poly(oxybutylene) copolymer", Soft Matter, 1, 138-145 (2005).

45.  C. Chaibundit, P. Sumanatrakool, S Chinchew, P. Kanatharana, C. Booth and X-F. Yuan, "Association properties of diblock copolymer of ethylene oxide and 1,2-butylene oxide: E₁₇B₁₂ in aqueous solution", Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 283, 544-554 (2005)..