Complex flows and optics to model topographical substrate design: Solar panel application balancing superhydrophobicity and concentrated photovoltaics

流体在各种自然现象、技术和工业应用中与表面相互作用。在过去的几十年里，关于接触线运动的理论工作--两个不相容的液体和固体表面之间的位置-使石油提取变得越来越有效，促进了各种印刷和涂层应用，并开辟了微流体和纳米流体的领域。在这些应用中，重点放在流体的运动和轮廓上，并且必须考虑广泛长度范围内的许多物理影响。然而，物理效应主要是那些影响流体运动的影响，而不是流体存在对光、热或其他电磁波特性的任何影响。虽然光学材料以及润湿和传播几十年来一直受到单独的关注，但它们的综合影响并没有得到详细的研究，还有几个悬而未决的问题仍未得到我们的解决。特别是流体动力学物理与电磁辐射的耦合：每当为其光、紫外线或其他属性而设计的表面与雨水等流体相互作用时，流体动力学和电磁波传播都将面临建模挑战。该提案中的一个原型情况是雨水落在太阳能电池板上，但还有许多其他例子：汽车挡风玻璃、建筑物上的镀膜窗户、汽车上的雷达或红外传感器(例如自动制动系统)，或者在较小规模的微流体设备中通过可见光或其他电磁波探测的多相流体。从本质上讲，我们考虑任何与流体相互作用的先进光学材料。本项目将在理论和计算相结合的协同和跨学科框架下，探索光、微结构和流体动力学之间的基本关系，以设计出更高效、更安全、更低成本的材料/表面-最终目标是优化设计。特别是对于光伏表面的原型，它是为了了解如何通过一个基板设计最好地实现自清洁、减少反射和集中光伏的目标，同时对情况进行一般性建模，以便能够告知无数其他应用，其中电磁波与移动的流体相互作用。

Fluids interract with surfaces in a vast variety of natural phenomena, and technological and industrial applications. Theoretical work over the last few decades on the motion of contact lines---the location between two immiscible fluids and a solid surface---has enabled increasingly efficient oil extraction, contributed to a wide variety of printing and coating applications, and opened up the fields of micro and nanofluidics. In these applications, the focus is on the motion and profile of the fluid and has to take account of many physical effects across a wide range of lengthscales. However, the physical effects are predominately those that affect the motion of the fluid, rather than any impact from the presence of the fluid on optical, thermal or other electromagnetic wave properties.Whilst optical materials, and wetting and spreading, have received attention individually for several decades, their combined effects have not been scrutinised in detail, and several unresolved issues still elude us. In particular the coupling of the physics of fluid dynamics with electromagnetic radiation: Whenever a surface that is designed for its light, ultra-violet, or other properties, interacts with fluids such as rainwater there will be both fluid dynamics and electromagnetic wave propagation challenges to model. A prototype situation in this proposal is that of rain on solar panels, but many other examples exist: car windscreens, coated windows on buildings, radar or infra-red sensors on cars (e.g. for automatic braking systems), or at smaller scales multiphase fluids in microfluidic devices probed via visible light or other electromagnetic waves. In essence we consider any advanced optical material that has an interplay with fluids.This project will explore the fundamental relationships between light, microstructure, and hydrodynamics for the design of advanced optical materials, in a synergistic and interdisciplinary framework combining theory and computations---with the ultimate goal being optimal design leading to more efficient, safer, and lower cost materials/surfaces. In particular for the prototype of photovoltaic surfaces, it is to understand how best to achieve the objectives of self-cleaning, reflection reduction, and concentrated photovoltaics with one substrate design, whilst modelling the situation in a generality to be able to inform the myriad of other applications where electromagnetic waves interact with moving fluids.