Support for U. S. Participants in the Max Planck Program on Geophysical Particle-Fluid Flows (Dresden, Germany, March 14-April 15, 2016)

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

PI: Jenkins, James T. Proposal Number: 1619768 The proposal seeks funds to partially support the attendance (which includes the registration and travel) of about 25 US scientists to the five-week long program devoted to two-phase modeling of geophysical flows that involve particles and fluids that will take place at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany, between March 14th and April 15th, 2016. This symposium is motivated by the need to understand natural fluid-particle flow phenomena, such as (a) the influence of the unsteady mean and fluctuating velocities on particles in a turbulent flow over a range of particle concentration and ratios of particle-fluid mass density; (b) the nature of the inter-actions between particles and between the particles and fluid at the surface of a particle bed; and (c) the mechanisms by which large-scale features develop on the bed in systems driven by water or wind. Geophysical flows occur over a range of length scales, time scales, and concentrations that pose problems for present computational schemes based on the Navier-Stokes equations. At the present time, two-phase continuum formulations are the best hope for describing such flows, but they require correct physical models for terms that describe the interactions between the fluid and the particles. The development of such models will be the focus of this workshop. Understanding the natural flows upon which the workshop is focused would benefit modeling and prediction of phenomena quite important for human life and for the economy, such as sand storms, torrents of rock and snow-melt down mountainsides, avalanches of powder and granular snow, transport of sediment by waves at coastlines, in rivers and streams, and down continental shelves. Even plumes and surges of volcanic gas and ash that can cause disruption in air transportation and agriculture fall into this category.