Lattice Boltzmann Simulations of Soft Matter Applications

ABSTRACT

Soft Matter applications encompass a range of complex fluid flows where coherent macro-structures (clusters of rigid particles, red blood cells, etc.), coupled to fluid flow, are easily deformable. However, there are challenges in modeling these applications numerically, such as tracking/capturing a moving interface and handling the coupled motion of the fluid and finite-sized particles. There are no ideal simulation techniques that can be applied to solve such complex fluid flows, but an alternative approach to traditional computational fluid dynamics know as the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) offers a favorable set of trade-offs for simulating a subset of these problems. In this talk, I will summarize the benefits of our multi-component LBM approach, and I will demonstrate its capability by presenting two case studies: 1) Shear-induced interfacial assembly of Janus particles (particles with heterogeneous wettability), and 2) Rupture dynamics of a liquid bridge between spherical particles in extensional motion. In both situations, it was found that explicit rendering of the particle shape and a two-way coupling between fluids and particles was necessary to capture the complex behavior of the situations, demonstrating the LBM as an effective tool for simulating such phenomena, which have applications in many fields such as particle-self assembly in oil and gas pipelines.

BIOGRAPHY

Kevin Connington is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. Before coming to Stevens, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Levich Institute for Physico-Chemical Hydrodynamics at the City College of New York, affiliated with the Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics Departments. He obtained his degrees (B.S., M.S.E, and Ph.D.) all from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. During his graduate degree study, he spent two years as a visiting student at the Los Alamos National Labs division of Earth and Environmental Science (EES). Dr. Connington teaches classes related to Fluid Mechanics and Numerical Methods, and has an interest in developing new numerical methods that can be applied to study complex multiphase flows. At Stevens, he is a member of the Research Computing Committee, and an avid user of their High-Performance Computing resources.