Despite the multiple applications and impact in industry, environment, health, and defense, the role of particles in thermal transport processes remains poorly understood. By characterizing the fluid dynamics and particles in thermally stratified media under various conditions, the project will provide new knowledge applicable to a range of phenomena including rain formation, pollutant transport, inhaled particulate matter transport and mixing in transcontinental gas ducts. Additionally, by exploring the possibility of using magnetic particles as a control mechanism, the project will offer strategies to regulate industrial processes, with potentially increasing their efficiency. The research will provide insight on the control of thermal mixing for industrial as well as biological systems. The project will directly contribute to STEM education of K-12 students and educational development of both graduate and undergraduate students; significant efforts will be made to disseminate the results to the broader scientific community and to society.
The project aims to quantitatively describe and significantly improve our understanding of the phenomena resulting from the interaction between thermally-stratified turbulent convection with inertial particles. Advanced experimental flow-diagnostic tools will be used to track a large set of inertial particles and flow tracers at high spatial and temporal resolutions. The work will examine the dominant factors modulating the dynamics of the particles, flow instability triggered by particles, preferential concentration, two- and four-way coupling between particles and flow. Special attention will be placed on characterizing such phenomena under disturbed natural convection via additional boundary conditions and electromagnetic control on particles. Analysis will include Eulerian and Lagrangian statistics as well as highly resolved trajectories, velocity, and acceleration of large set of particles. Results will uncover the role of control variables including the Stokes and Rayleigh numbers and volume fraction, which will provide basis for the development of strategies to control thermal processes in various applications.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
