Fluids and Flows

Our tools effectively expose the intricate fundamentals of turbulence to our curiosity, allowing us to answer many intriguing questions. How do buoyancy and rotation affect the statistical properties of turbulence? What can – and should – we do to shape turbulence to our needs? These questions are also extended to environmental applications. How is particulate matter such as sediment or droplets transported in turbulent flows? 

Within the exciting field of multiphase and complex fluids, we study the role of mesoscale physics on the macroscopic dynamics of such systems. For example: how drastically do fluid-fluid interfaces, bubbles, particles or polymers affect macroscopic properties? We also study the fluid physics at even smaller scales where capillary and even molecular-length scales are relevant, and where surface and interfacial effects dominate the behavior. Examples include Marangoni flows, interfacial instabilities and (de)wetting phenomena.

Our main research themes are turbulence, environmental fluid mechanics, multiphase and complex fluids, and nano- and microhydrodynamics.