Support of an NSF-IFPRI Collaborative Summary Meeting, June 29-July 1, 2011, at the Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, NC

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

1138571 PI: Behringer This proposal seeks funding for a summary and review meeting that will consolidate results from the NSF-IFPRI Collaboratory project to characterize the modeling of granular materials. The meeting is to be held on June 29 to July 1, 2011 at The Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, NC and will bring together modelers, experimenters, IFPRI members and others. The meeting will follow and be a part of the IFPRI annual meeting. The key feature of this meeting will be a head-on comparison of physical data acquired at CUNY and at Duke University with simulations carried out by a number of groups, and in particular, by groups funded through NSF-CBET via a proposal to IFPRI (International Fine Particle Research Institute). By conjoining this meeting with the IFPRI AGM, we expect to achieve significant dissemination of results from the NSF-IFPRI collaboratory within the community of academic and industrial powder users. We will also seek the participation of a range of young scientists and engineers. Intellectual Merit In the case of powders and granular materials, it is only rarely possible to make a detailed quantitative comparison between careful laboratory studies and numerical simulations. Under recent NSF-CBET funding, there has been just such a study that has been orchestrated through the efforts of IFPRI. Two detailed sets of physical measurements were provided to a number of US modelers. The meeting, for which support is requested here, will bring these US modelers together to discuss the results of their simulations and to draw conclusions about the reliability of models. It is also anticipated that non-NSF-funded participants will attend this meeting. These latter participants, coming from industry and from outside the US will enhance the modeling and meeting efforts, although, to reiterate, no NSF funds have been or will be provided for them. Broader Impact The results of this meeting will be used to produce a extensive public report of the success of different models. This will be of great value to commercial users of granular materials.