PEI Faculty Seminar Series: Small-scale Fluid Dynamics with Environmental Implications

 

Fall 2016 PEI Faculty Seminar Series – 12/6/2016

Howard Stone, Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Fluid flows occur at every scale in our environment, from flows through the porous and fractured materials that make up Earth’s subsurface to large-scale flows that occur in the oceans and atmospheres. In this talk I will highlight my research group’s approach to thinking about some of these problems using experimental, laboratory-scale and/or “reduced-order modeling” as a mechanics-based approach for highlighting significant features of otherwise complex phenomena. In particular, I will (i) illustrate how gradients of salt concentration can drive motion of micron-size particles, which is known as diffusiophoresis, and show how the effect can be used as a means to clean particles from water, (ii) describe the interplay of flow and bacteria and/or biofilms in porous spaces, including unanticipated effects that lead to clogging and “long-range” quorum-sensing responses, and (iii) on length-scales relevant to climate studies, study the development of ice bridges in narrow straits, and show how simplified models can yield insights not available in numerical climate models owing to lack of resolution.

PEI Faculty Seminar Series: Small-scale Fluid Dynamics with Environmental Implications

Publish Date

December 6, 2016

Presenter(s)

Howard Stone

Link to Video

https://youtu.be/s-oYHdvEZ7o

Video Length

00:58:52

 

Fall 2016 PEI Faculty Seminar Series – 12/6/2016

Howard Stone, Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Fluid flows occur at every scale in our environment, from flows through the porous and fractured materials that make up Earth’s subsurface to large-scale flows that occur in the oceans and atmospheres. In this talk I will highlight my research group’s approach to thinking about some of these problems using experimental, laboratory-scale and/or “reduced-order modeling” as a mechanics-based approach for highlighting significant features of otherwise complex phenomena. In particular, I will (i) illustrate how gradients of salt concentration can drive motion of micron-size particles, which is known as diffusiophoresis, and show how the effect can be used as a means to clean particles from water, (ii) describe the interplay of flow and bacteria and/or biofilms in porous spaces, including unanticipated effects that lead to clogging and “long-range” quorum-sensing responses, and (iii) on length-scales relevant to climate studies, study the development of ice bridges in narrow straits, and show how simplified models can yield insights not available in numerical climate models owing to lack of resolution.