Workshop on Environmental and Extreme Multiphase Flows, Gainesville, FL, March 14 - 16, 2012

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

1217409 PI: Balachandar Volcanic eruptions, powder snow avalanches, turbidity currents, dust storms and bubble plumes are diverse examples of environmental flows. But they share a lot of common physics. Fundamentally all these flows are environmental examples of dispersed two-phase turbulence. For example, both in turbidity currents and powder snow avalanches the key common physics is in accurately capturing the competition between deposition and resuspension from the bottom boundary. Similarly, entrainment of ambient fluid is the process that plays a key role in the vertical development of volcanic and bubbly plumes. Despite these commonalities, the progress of mathematical models, closures and simulation techniques have gone on independently. Especially, the recent rapid expansion of research enterprise has greatly diminished the potential for cross fertilization of ideas. The purpose of the workshop is to bring world-class experts from these different disciplines and promote cross fertilization of ideas and methodologies. The workshop is held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, from March 14th to March 16th of 2012. The intellectual merit of the workshop is to identify key outstanding challenges that are common and thereby enable better understanding, modeling and predictive simulations of a broad class of complex environmental turbulent multiphase flow problems. The broader impact of the workshop will be through wide dissemination of the workshop results and findings through a dedicated website and also by publishing the key contributions as a state of the art book.