The Center for Multiphase Flow Research and Education hosted its annual meeting on October 26, 2021, marking another year of successful collaboration and discovery.
CoMFRE affiliates gave 11 presentations on member-supported research projects as well as federally-supported research – and students participated in a research pitch competition. Nearly 50 researchers, graduate students and industry partners attended the virtual event.
“This was the second year in a row we had a virtual annual meeting due to the pandemic. Even in a virtual format, the presentations were well-received and the student competition was successful. We look forward to next year in the hope we can have our annual meeting in-person on the ISU campus,” said Ted Heindel, director of CoMFRE, University Professor of mechanical engineering, and Bergles Professor of Thermal Science.
Research presentation titles
Droplet Breakage in Turbulent Flow: Experiments and Theory – Rodney Fox and Krishnamurthy (Krishna) Ravichandar
Modeling Agitated Filter Dryers and Particle Mixing for Pharmaceutical Applications – Shankar Subramaniam, Viraj Belekar and Ted Heindel.
Investigation of Mixing, Heat Transfer and Reaction in a Lagoon Biodigester – Alberto Passalacqua
Momentum and Heat Transfer in Gas-Solid Flow: From Particle Scale to Device Scale – Shankar Subramaniam
Quantification of Multiphase Flow Phenomena Pertinent to Aerospace Engineering Applications – Hui Hu
Laser and Optical Diagnostic Techniques in Multiphase Flows – James Michael
Implementation of Quadrature-Based Moment Methods – Alberto Passalacqua
CFD Modeling of Multiphase Process Equipment – Rodney Fox
Two-Phase Thermal Management for High-Heat-Flux Dissipation – Todd Kingston
Near-Field Spray Characterization – Ted Heindel
Research pitch competition
Alberto Passalacqua moderated a one-slide research pitch competition that challenged graduate students and post-doctoral associates to quickly, clearly and succinctly share their research pitches.
The first-place winner of the pitch competition was Roy Pillers, second place was presented to Nick Schnoebelen, and third place went to Krishnamurthy Ravichandar, all Iowa State graduate students in mechanical engineering. The winners received cash prizes of $300, $200 and $100, respectively.
2022 CoMFRE Annual Meeting
CoMFRE is planning the 2022 Annual Meeting to be held in late October, with the specific date yet to be decided.
“Current plans are to hold a two-day meeting on the Iowa State campus so our industrial members can visit our research labs and meet our graduate students in-person. Further details will be provided in the March 2022 newsletter,” said Heindel.