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SUMMARY:MechE Colloquium: A statistical mesoscale view of phase change
DTSTART:20251111T120000
DTEND:20251111T130000
DTSTAMP:20260916T224258Z
UID:1dac699e04a8bb341c0fed98d64de5a072931d5ab419f7bc29042dfe
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Mirko Gallo\, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Eng
 ineering\, Sapienza University of Rome \nAbstract: Phase change in fluid
 s is inherently multiscale: molecular thermal fluctuations seed embryos of
  a new phase\, and only rare\, critical nuclei trigger the transition (boi
 ling\, cavitation\, condensation). Classical approaches split the problem
 —molecular dynamics for nucleation\, continuum equations for flow—so a
  unified picture is hard to obtain. In this talk\, I present a mesoscale s
 tochastic framework based on fluctuating hydrodynamics that captures both 
 the stochastic onset of nucleation and the subsequent hydrodynamic evoluti
 on of bubbles and droplets\, including wave emission and inertial effects.
  \nTo bridge the vast time-scale gap that defeats brute-force simulation\
 , we embed this framework in an efficient rare-event strategy: large-devia
 tion theory applied to fluctuating hydrodynamics computes the most-probabl
 e nucleation pathways and rates far from equilibrium\, turning a waiting-t
 ime problem into a variational one. The result is a predictive\, experimen
 t-facing view of incipient phase change in real fluids\, with quantitative
  outputs such as threshold conditions (temperature\, pressure\, supersatur
 ation)\, nucleation rates\, growth kinetics\, and hydrodynamic signals (e.
 g.\, acoustics) — a practical route to prediction and control across app
 lications.\n\n\nBiography: As of 2025\, Mirko Gallo is an Associate Pr
 ofessor of Fluid Mechanics in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace 
 Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome and a Fellow of the Sapienza
  School of Advanced Studies. His research focuses on mesoscale modelling 
 of fluids within a multidisciplinary framework that integrates fluid mech
 anics\, statistical mechanics\, applied mathematics\, high-performance com
 puting\, and soft-matter physics\, enabling multiscale investigations of 
 complex fluids and flows. He received the AIMETA Junior Prize for Fluid M
 echanics in 2022 and was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2024. \n 
LOCATION:CM 1 4 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==CM%201%204 https://epfl.zoom.u
 s/j/61360740951
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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