The research is focused on predicting and controlling deformation and flow of a group of complex materials abundant in nature and industry, called Yield-Stress (YS) or viscoplastic (VP) materials. These start to flow when a sufficient stress is applied to them but behave as solids otherwise.
Predicting the behaviour of YS materials is particularly challenging for at least three reasons: (a) It is challenging to determine material properties accurately. (b) Inappropriate constitutive models have often been used, i.e., generalized Newtonian fluid models, whereas recent experiments have shown that they also exhibit elastic and thixotropic properties. (c) It is challenging to compute complex flows because of their transient nature.
In response to the challenge of predicting flows of YS materials, it is imperative to establish a coherent and efficient approach to predict such flows by (a) developing more accurate and general YS constitutive models, (b) developing advanced numerical methods for computing complex YS flows In this way, it will become possible to bridge the gap between science and modelling developed in academia (fluid mechanics, rheology, and computational methods) and process engineering (food, chemical, pharmaceutical, oil exploration, construction, etc.).
