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SUMMARY:Prix Rhyming 2014: Modelling droplets flowing in microchannels
DTSTART:20151204T111500
DTSTAMP:20260314T204811Z
UID:e40e1d70d1266bfb18f6ee5a958c12dc58ec2e40c901420c9c42f476
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Mathias Nagel\, ETHZ\nBio: I was born and raised in Berlin
 \, Germany and studied Aeronautical Engineering at the RWTH-Aachen Univers
 ity. During my studies I spent a semester studying abroad at the Keio Univ
 ersity in Tokyo Japan and in an internship at EADS Space Transportation in
  Ottobrunn near Munich. In my masters thesis (more accurately diploma thes
 is) I had worked on the simulation of premixed flames with a level set and
  reconstruction.\nFrom 2009 to 2014 I pursued a PhD at the EPFL in Lausann
 e Switzerland in the Laboratory of Fluid Dynamics and Instabilities of Pro
 f. François Gallaire. Herein I studied two-phase flows at low Reynolds an
 d Capillary number like they often appear in Lab-On-A-Chip applications. D
 uring the course of this work I developed a numerical flow solver called "
 ulambator"\, which is now open-source.\nThe studies in microfluidics expos
 ed me to some experimental work and I came to enjoy and value the close in
 teraction of computer based model approach in close exchange with experime
 nts and in consequence I came to join Prof. Jan Vermant in the Soft Materi
 als group at ETHZ\, where I am working since 2015 on problems related to m
 icro-rheology.\nCurrent projects range from building a dynamic pendent dro
 p apparatus to simulation of complex viscoelastic interfaces in the presen
 ce of particles.\nThis work concentrates on the study of droplets in micro
 fluidics\, mostly performed numerically. The motivation is rooted in the e
 xisting discrepancy between the level of complexity achieved in experiment
 al microfluidics or even Lab-on-a-chip applications and our fundamental/th
 eoretical understanding of such experiments. For the sake of completeness\
 , other objects than droplets\, such as fibers\, are also considered in th
 is work.\nWe derived a simplified set of governing equations and a numeric
 al method favoring the discretization of free interfaces. Such boundary el
 ement scheme has proven to be robust\, efficient\, and versatile allowing 
 for the investigation of a wealth of theoretical and practical situations:
  from revisiting the well-known Saffman-Taylor instability to the theoreti
 cal prediction of the velocity of droplet in a microchannel\, via the capt
 ure of droplets using microfluidic traps\, the relaxation of a deformed dr
 oplet in a microchannel and the study of solid objects as the thin rigid f
 ibers.\nThis numerical tool has systematically been confronted to experime
 nts\, either from the literature when available or carried out directly in
  the laboratory when needed. The numerical simulations have in the majorit
 y of cases proven successful in reproducing the experiments and have helpe
 d gaining a greater physical understanding of the fundamental mechanisms u
 nderpinning Lab-on-a-chip applications.
LOCATION:GCA 331 http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=GC%20A3%2031
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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