PIs: Professor Gerry FULLER and Professor Xuefeng YUAN
Abstract:The stability of emulsions and foams impacts a wide range of problems in human health and chemical product design. The research will investigate the physical mechanisms controlling film drainage and the ultimate coalescence of drops and bubbles in the presence of rheologically complex fluid-fluid interfaces. This effort will combine experimental observation with computer simulation to elucidate the role of adsorbed amphiphiles and particles in controlling coalescence dynamics. The computational work will utilize a multiple scale simulation platform integrated with finite volume, lattice Boltzmann, immersed boundary and molecular dynamics techniques on “Tianhe-2” supercomputer for modelling the thin film drainage as droplets and bubbles approach on another measured by “dynamic fluid film interferometer” (DFI). Interfacial shear and dilatational rheology will be utilized to extract the constitutive relationship of the complex thin films. Specific applications can be selected from a range of problems that include oil recovery, food processing, protein stability, and biofilm/cellular interactions. The selection would be determined through communication with applicants.
