Project acronym INNODYN
Project Integrated Analysis & Design in Nonlinear Dynamics
Researcher (PI) Jakob Søndergaard Jensen
Host Institution (HI) DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE8, ERC-2011-StG_20101014
Summary Imagine lighter and more fuel economic cars with improved crashworthiness that help save lives, aircrafts and wind-turbine blades with significant weight reductions that lead to large savings in material costs and environmental impact, and light but efficient armour that helps to protect against potentially deadly blasts. These are the future perspectives with a new generation of advanced structures and micro-structured materials.
The goal of INNODYN is to bring current design procedures for structures and materials a significant step forward by developing new efficient procedures for integrated analysis and design taking the nonlinear dynamic performance into account. The assessment of nonlinear dynamic effects is essential for fully exploiting the vast potentials of structural and material capabilities, but a focused endeavour is strongly required to develop the methodology required to reach the ambitious goals.
INNODYN will in two interacting work-packages develop the necessary computational analysis and design tools using
1) reduced-order models (WP1) that enable optimization of the overall topology of structures which is today hindered by excessive computational costs when dealing with nonlinear dynamic systems
2) multi-scale models (WP2) that facilitates topological design of the material microstructure including essential nonlinear geometrical effects currently not included in state-of-the-art methods.
The work will be carried out by a research group with two PhD-students and a postdoc, led by a PI with a track-record for original ground-breaking research in analysis and optimization of linear and nonlinear dynamics and hosted by one of the world's leading research groups on topology optimization, the TOPOPT group at the Technical University of Denmark.
Summary
Imagine lighter and more fuel economic cars with improved crashworthiness that help save lives, aircrafts and wind-turbine blades with significant weight reductions that lead to large savings in material costs and environmental impact, and light but efficient armour that helps to protect against potentially deadly blasts. These are the future perspectives with a new generation of advanced structures and micro-structured materials.
The goal of INNODYN is to bring current design procedures for structures and materials a significant step forward by developing new efficient procedures for integrated analysis and design taking the nonlinear dynamic performance into account. The assessment of nonlinear dynamic effects is essential for fully exploiting the vast potentials of structural and material capabilities, but a focused endeavour is strongly required to develop the methodology required to reach the ambitious goals.
INNODYN will in two interacting work-packages develop the necessary computational analysis and design tools using
1) reduced-order models (WP1) that enable optimization of the overall topology of structures which is today hindered by excessive computational costs when dealing with nonlinear dynamic systems
2) multi-scale models (WP2) that facilitates topological design of the material microstructure including essential nonlinear geometrical effects currently not included in state-of-the-art methods.
The work will be carried out by a research group with two PhD-students and a postdoc, led by a PI with a track-record for original ground-breaking research in analysis and optimization of linear and nonlinear dynamics and hosted by one of the world's leading research groups on topology optimization, the TOPOPT group at the Technical University of Denmark.
Max ERC Funding
823 992 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-02-01, End date: 2016-01-31
Project acronym SIMCOMICS
Project Simulation of droplets in complex microchannels
Researcher (PI) Francois Gallaire
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE8, ERC-2011-StG_20101014
Summary In droplet-based microfluidics, the elementary units transporting reagents from one functional site to another (mixer, sensor or analyzer) are droplets, which are carried by an inert wetting fluid. This research project aims at the development of numerical models of flowing droplets in thin spatially extended microchannels, designed at avoiding the exponential complexity of parallelized 1-D networks. We aim at simulating the trajectory of droplets transported by a pressure-driven carrier fluid, as they evolve in a surface energy gradient, generated by channel depth variations or surface tension inhomogeneities.
To this end, we exploit the remarkable aspect ratio of these microfluidic devices to propose a depth-averaged description of the pancake shaped droplets. The resulting equations, called Brinkman's equations, combine the 2D Stokes equations with 2D Darcy potential-flow-like equations. Their diphasic simulation relies on the adaptation of existing algorithms to this particular free interface problem. Pressure corrections due to the thickness variations of the lubricating thin films will also be included.
Surfactant and heat dynamics will then be added to model thermo- and soluto-capillary forcing. The depth-averaged model will be finally generalized to account for arbitrary depth variations, so as to add dynamics to the quasi-static description of droplets moving along successive minimal surface energy locations.
A specific part of the project is also devoted to the development of an experimental expertise: it is indeed essential to the success of the project to conduct fundamental microfluidic experiments in order to validate our new models. While SIMCOMICS aims at shrinking the gap between present computations of droplets flowing in microchannels and the increasing number of application-oriented experimental studies, it both raises fundamental questions and opens promising perspectives for the engineering design of new microcarved microchannels.
Summary
In droplet-based microfluidics, the elementary units transporting reagents from one functional site to another (mixer, sensor or analyzer) are droplets, which are carried by an inert wetting fluid. This research project aims at the development of numerical models of flowing droplets in thin spatially extended microchannels, designed at avoiding the exponential complexity of parallelized 1-D networks. We aim at simulating the trajectory of droplets transported by a pressure-driven carrier fluid, as they evolve in a surface energy gradient, generated by channel depth variations or surface tension inhomogeneities.
To this end, we exploit the remarkable aspect ratio of these microfluidic devices to propose a depth-averaged description of the pancake shaped droplets. The resulting equations, called Brinkman's equations, combine the 2D Stokes equations with 2D Darcy potential-flow-like equations. Their diphasic simulation relies on the adaptation of existing algorithms to this particular free interface problem. Pressure corrections due to the thickness variations of the lubricating thin films will also be included.
Surfactant and heat dynamics will then be added to model thermo- and soluto-capillary forcing. The depth-averaged model will be finally generalized to account for arbitrary depth variations, so as to add dynamics to the quasi-static description of droplets moving along successive minimal surface energy locations.
A specific part of the project is also devoted to the development of an experimental expertise: it is indeed essential to the success of the project to conduct fundamental microfluidic experiments in order to validate our new models. While SIMCOMICS aims at shrinking the gap between present computations of droplets flowing in microchannels and the increasing number of application-oriented experimental studies, it both raises fundamental questions and opens promising perspectives for the engineering design of new microcarved microchannels.
Max ERC Funding
1 405 796 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31
