Nano-Engineered Flow Technologies: Simulation for Design across Scale and Phase

在接下来的25年里，社会将在健康、交通、能源和气候方面面临重大挑战，这将需要新的工程解决方案。最近在器件和材料制造方面的快速进步提供了一个重要的机会，通过使新技术能够被设计成纳米级来帮助应对这些挑战。在最小范围内操纵流体的设备表现出复杂的、有时与直觉相反的现象，提供了新的科学和技术机会。科学上的机会是理解和模拟相界面处和周围的微观物理如何驱动整体流动行为。技术机遇是利用这一行为来设计和制造具有前所未有能力的设备。这项研究计划旨在揭示流动的工程科学本质上是多尺度的，并将其封装在高效的建模软件中，以便能够设计下一代技术。该计划旨在通过提供纳米工程流动技术的模拟设计能力以及对关键界面流体动力学的更好理解，支持英国未来在纳米结构和智能界面方面的创新。我们将生产这样的软件：a)将界面分解到分子尺度，b)跨越与工程应用相关的尺度。由于精确的分子/粒子方法在工程尺度上计算上是不可行的，而高效但传统的流体模型不能捕捉到重要的分子物理，这在时间和空间上都是一个可怕的多尺度问题。我们的软件将嵌入智能，动态决定每个界面位置、每个阶段组合所需的正确模拟工具，并将这些工具与适当的计算平台匹配，以实现最高效率。结果将是一个革命性的新框架，用于模拟自然界和工程上的多尺度多物理系统，大大超过当前的建模能力。这代表的阶跃变化进步包括：-具有纳米级保真度的工程规模系统的预测模拟；-对界面流动系统物理的新见解；-在模拟中分配的计算资源，以实现更快速的系统分析；-评估以前不适合调查的拟议流动系统设计；-访问颗粒流和雪崩动力学以及包括城市交通建模和金融市场稳定在内的社会/经济系统的跨学科应用。这项工作得到了9个外部合作伙伴的大力支持，从大型跨国公司到中小企业。目标应用都取决于分阶段的界面的行为，包括：利用纳米气泡空化的根治性癌症治疗；通过蒸发纳米半月板冷却大功率电子设备；用于分离油水的纳米线膜，例如用于漏油；用于减阻和防污染的智能纳米结构表面，以及应用于低排放航空航天、汽车和海洋运输的应用。这些应用对工程设计的模拟提出了远远超过当前能力的要求。因此，我们的合作伙伴将是该计划成果的“早期采用者”，以满足他们未来需要提供的技术能力。这项跨学科的研究利用了跨越应用数学、物理、机械工程和计算的技术和成果。它的及时性在于将一支资质独特的学术团队与一群积极参与并承诺的行业合作伙伴汇聚在一起，这些合作伙伴将共同努力，利用当前和新兴的纳米工程流动系统，为英国和其他地方带来社会和经济利益。

Over the next 25 years, society will face major challenges in health, transportation, energy and climate that will demand novel engineering solutions. Recent rapid advances in device and materials fabrication offer an important opportunity to help meet these challenges by enabling new technologies to be engineered down to the nanometre scale. Devices that manipulate fluids at the smallest scales exhibit complex and sometimes counter-intuitive phenomena that present novel scientific and technological opportunities. The scientific opportunity is to understand and model how the microscopic physics at and around phase interfaces drives the overall flow behaviour. The technological opportunity is to exploit this behaviour to design and manufacture devices with unprecedented capabilities. This research Programme is about uncovering the engineering science of flows that are intrinsically multiscale, and encapsulating this in efficient modelling software in order to enable the design of next generation technologies.This Programme aims to underpin future UK innovation in nano-structured and smart interfaces by delivering a simulation-for-design capability for nano-engineered flow technologies, as well as a better understanding of the critical interfacial fluid dynamics. We will produce software that a) resolves interfaces down to the molecular scale, and b) spans the scales relevant to the engineering application. As accurate molecular/particle methods are computationally unfeasible at engineering scales, and efficient but conventional fluids models do not capture the important molecular physics, this is a formidable multiscale problem in both time and space. Our software will have embedded intelligence that decides dynamically on the correct simulation tools needed at each interface location, for every phase combination, and matches these tools to appropriate computational platforms for maximum efficiency.The outcome will be a revolutionary new framework for simulating multiscale multiphysics systems in nature as well as engineering, greatly surpassing current modelling capabilities. The step-change advances this represents include:- predictive simulations of engineering-scale systems with nanoscale fidelity;- new insight into the physics of interfacial flow systems;- computational resources allocated in-simulation to enable more rapid system analysis;- assessment of proposed flow system designs that were not previously amenable to investigation;- accessing trans-disciplinary applications in granular flows and avalanche dynamics, and social/economic systems including urban traffic modelling and financial market stability.This work is strongly supported by 9 external partners, ranging from large multinational companies to an SME. The targeted applications all depend on the behaviour of interfaces that divide phases, and include: radical cancer treatments that exploit nano-bubble cavitation; the cooling of high-power electronics through evaporative nano-menisci; nanowire membranes for separating oil and water, e.g. for oil spills; and smart nano-structured surfaces for drag reduction and anti-fouling, with applications to low-emissions aerospace, automotive and marine transport. These applications make demands on simulation for engineering design that far outstrip current capabilities. Our partners will therefore be 'early-adopters' of this Programme's outcomes in order to meet the technical capabilities they will need to provide in the future.This interdisciplinary research draws on techniques and results across the boundaries of applied mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering, and computing. Its timeliness lies in the convergence of a uniquely-qualified academic team with a group of engaged and committed industrial partners, who will work together to exploit current and emerging nano-engineered flow systems for societal and economic benefit to the UK and elsewhere.