Predictive Analysis of Complex Interfacial Flows (PACIF)

界面流动在各种自然现象和技术应用中都遇到过：从水下，河流和熔岩流到生物环境，如眼睛中的泪膜，到常规工程应用，如冷凝器，热交换器和蒸馏装置，以及微反应器/MEMS和纳米技术领域的最新发展。所涉及的长度尺度范围从用于薄膜脱湿的纳米级，到用于传热传质应用的厘米级，再到用于地质流动的米级。这些工艺和装置通常主要取决于液膜的行为，特别是在存在移动接触线的情况下。拟议的研究是一种协同的方法，结合了最先进的理论、建模、模拟和实验，涉及一个包括化学/机械工程师、化学家、物理学家和应用数学家在内的团队的高度多学科的努力。建议的研究需要这个团队的互补专业知识，旨在研究复杂界面流动领域的一些开放问题和研究方向。例如，在当前具有移动接触线的流动预测模型中，一个关键问题是需要人工措施来减轻接触线奇点。因此，为了充分解决接触线附近的流动，必要的局部网格细化使当前模型要么不切实际，要么效率低下。因此，本研究具有重要的科学意义和现实意义。这是一个高风险的努力，提供必要的基础和方法，以详细了解具有移动接触线的复杂界面流动，并开发工具，以准确和有效地预测其动态，可用于未来的研究。最终目标是使用这些工具来优化利用这些流的流程和设备。

Interfacial flows are encountered in a wide variety of natural phenomena and technological applications: from underwater, river and lava flows to biological settings such as tear films in the eye to conventional engineering applications such as condensers, heat exchangers and distillation units and more recent developments in the area of microreactors/MEMS and nanotechnology. The length scales involved range from the nanometer level as for dewetting of thin films, to the centimetre scale for heat and mass transfer applications, to the meter scale for geological flows. These processes and devices often depend critically on the behaviour of liquid films, especially in the presence of moving contact lines. The proposed research is a synergistic approach combining state-of-the-art theory, modelling, simulations and experimentation and involves a highly multi-disciplinary effort with a team that includes chemical/mechanical engineers, chemists, physicists and applied mathematicians. The proposed research calling upon the complementary expertise of this team aims to examine a number of open problems and research directions in the area of complex interfacial flows. For instance, a crucial problem in current predictive models for flows with moving contact lines is that artificial measures are required to alleviate the contact-line singularity. As a consequence, the necessary local mesh refinement to fully resolve the flow near contact lines render current models either unrealistic or excessively inefficient. The proposed research is therefore of paramount scientific and practical significance. It is a high-risk effort to provide the foundations and methodologies necessary for a detailed understanding of complex interfacial flows with moving contact lines and the development of tools for the accurate and efficient prediction of their dynamics that can be used in future research. The ultimate aim is the use of these tools for optimisation of processes and devices that exploit such flows.