Overview
We are an interdisciplinary research group motivated by industrial and fundamental problems related to energy and environmental issues. Many industrial processes that are relevant to the production or transport of energy are governed by the flow and deformation of structured-fluids, where solid and fluid constituents coexist. Extreme environmental events involving soil, mud and snow also feature multi-phase materials of similar nature.
Our goal is to understand multi-phase materials, from particles/droplets suspension to solid solutions, using tailored experimental and theoretical tools. Our work is highly interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of solid&fluid mechanics, rheology and materials science. We focus specifically on developing: (i) novel experimental techniques/setups and signals that push the boundaries of current established techniques; (ii) tailored materials and processes that achieve the required mechanical and physico-chemical properties; and (iii) theoretical continuum models that can describe the observed material behavior while accounting for coupled effects.
Examples of research interests: suspensions of gas hydrates for hydrogen transport and carbon dioxide sequestration, non-equilibrium manufacturing approaches via slurries or suspensions, fluidization of earth materials, new signals and setups for mechanical measurements, theoretical continuum mechanics modeling.