UK Consortium on Mesoscale Engineering Sciences (UKCOMES)

理解和预测介观世界是科学和工程研究的前沿，它支撑着一场新兴的技术革命，这场革命将在重要性上与更成熟的微纳科学和技术相媲美。在新兴的介观模拟领域工作需要一种真正的多学科方法，需要跨越广泛的空间和时间尺度，并需要物理化学、数学、生物、工程和计算科学的研究人员之间的密切互动。英国介观工程科学联盟(UKCOMES)的成立汇集了所有必要的专业知识，以做出关键的理论发现，并将这些新概念转化为能够利用当前和未来高端计算(HEC)硬件发展的软件。我们的工作将主要集中于在DL_Meso程序包中进一步发展格子Boltzmann方法(LBM)。LBM已经证明，它是模拟各种中尺度应用的理想方法，UKCOMES将努力将DL_Meso套件转变为世界领先的软件包，其中将包含处理界面流动、液滴运动、非牛顿流体、移动边界等的最先进算法。此外，该联盟的专业知识将确保DL_Meso将在拥有超过100,000个内核的计算机平台上高效运行，并能够采用GPU技术。UKCOMES的影响将在制药、化工、环境、制造和加工等行业感受到。设计人员、开发人员和制造商将受益于增强的建模和设计能力，例如设计未来基于液滴的微流控系统、新型喷墨或激光打印、喷雾干燥和微胶囊。从长远来看，UKCOMES的工作将影响与多相、多物种和非平衡传输物理有关的广泛相关行业的模拟工具，包括现代材料加工、化学和环境工程。

Understanding and predicting the mesoscopic world is at the forefront of science and engineering research that underpins an emerging technological revolution that will rival the more established micro and nano science and technology in importance. Working in the emergent field of mesoscopic simulation requires a truly multidisciplinary approach that needs to span a wide range of both spatial and temporal scales and necessitates close interaction between researchers in the physical and chemical sciences, mathematics, biology, engineering and computational science. The creation of the UK Consortium on Mesoscopic Engineering Sciences (UKCOMES) brings together all the required expertise to make critical theoretical discoveries and translate these new concepts into software that is able to exploit today's and future high-end computing (HEC) hardware developments. Our work will primarily focus on the further development of the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) within the DL_MESO package. The LBM has already demonstrated it is the ideal approach to simulating a broad range of mesoscale applications and UKCOMES will seek to transform the DL_MESO suite into a world-leading software package that will incorporate state-of-the-art algorithms for handling interfacial flows, droplet motion, non-Newtonian fluids, moving boundaries, etc. In addition, the consortium's expertise will ensure DL_MESO will run efficiently on computer platforms with more than 100,000 cores and will be able to embrace GPU technology. The impact of UKCOMES will be felt in the pharmaceutical, chemical, environmental, manufacturing and process industries and so on. Designers, developers and manufacturers will benefit from an enhanced modelling and design capability, e.g. designing future droplet-based micro-fluidic systems, novel ink jet or laser printing, spray drying and micro-encapsulation. In the longer term, the work of UKCOMES will impact simulation tools in a wide range of cognate industries concerned with multiphase, multi-species and non-equilibrium transport physics, including modern materials processing, and chemical and environmental engineering.