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A unique aspect of our research is the wide range of
materials and applications being studied. Fundamental physics tie the
various applications together, but specific modeling techniques vary widely: an
emphasis on interfacial phenomena in one application versus convective
transport in another; sub-micron characteristic lengths in one
case versus hundreds of microns in another; highly uniform
morphology in one material versus anisotropic, heterogeneous
structure in another.
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Materials |
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Consolidated Rocks:
These natural materials exhibit
widely varying porosity, permeability, heterogeneity, and
morphology. The range of characteristic length makes
multiscale modeling essential. |
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Packed Beds:
Uniform packings are common in
chemical engineering applications. They also serve as
prototype materials for theoretical studies. |
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Granular Materials:
Natural and synthetic granular
materials share many attributes with packed beds, but
exhibit more complex morphology because of variations in
particle shape, size distribution, orientation,
spatial correlation, and more. |
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Fibrous Materials:
Fibrous materials are very different from their
granular counterparts: solid volume fractions span three
orders of magnitude, particles have high aspect ratios, and
anisotropy is the norm rather than the exception. |
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Solid Foams:
Like fibers, foams exhibit a
large porosity range. Unlike fibers, they are
consolidated, oftentimes isotropic, and exhibit very specific
structures that are amenable to mathematical description. |
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Membranes:
Microfilitration membranes are amorphous structures
with pore sizes tailored to specific filtration
applications. Modeling is challenging but important because
of the critical applications that membranes are used in. |
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