PhD Position in Complex Fluids

Introduction

We are looking for a highly motivated and ambitious PhD candidate who is interested in research at the frontiers of complex fluids, non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, soft matter, bubbles, droplets, and mathematical and computational fluid mechanics.

Short Description: Currently, little is known about cavitation bubble dynamics in complex fluids. We are particularly interested in yield-stress fluids, which form a specific class of non-Newtonian fluids that possess a characteristic yield stress below which they may support the imposed external stress elastically but beyond which they no longer act as a solid but rather flow like a viscous fluid. Such viscoplastic behaviour is present in a wide range of soft materials, such as emulsions, foams, detergents, and gels. Cavitation bubble dynamics in such media is relevant in numerous industrial sectors such as additive manufacturing, food industry, cosmetics, and ultrasound-induced degassing and defoaming processes.

The project is highly interdisciplinary and a collaboration between the Institute of Physics (IoP) at the University of Amsterdam and the Multiphase Fluid Dynamics group at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at ETH, Zurich.

For more information about the Groups, please visit FluidLab, Soft Matter Group , Computational Soft Matter Group , Multiphase Fluid Dynamics , Institute of Fluid Dynamics

What are you going to do

We seek to appoint a PhD student to conduct numerical research to discover the effects of mechanical properties on cavitation bubble dynamics in yield stress fluids and soft elastic solids. You will design your own numerical setups/methods and perform mathematical and physical analysis.

You will:

• Simulate and analyse multiphase non-Newtonian fluid flows at different length scales using advanced numerical tools.
• Study how non-Newtonian properties affect interfacial flows.
• Develop mathematical model for bubbles and droplet dynamics in complex fluids.
• Present your results at international workshops and conferences.
• Closely collaborate with experimentalists.
• Work collaboratively and participate actively in scientific discussions between research groups in the Institute of Physics (e.g., Soft Matter Group, Computational Soft Matter Group, Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena: DIEP) and with the Multiphase Fluid Dynamics group at ETH.
• Publish in high level international journals.
• Take part in supervision of Bachelor and Master students.