Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C001133/1
Title:	Acceleration of rain initiation by cloud turbulence
Principal Investigator:	Turitsyn, Professor SK
Other Investigators:	Mezentsev, Dr V
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Sch of Engineering and Applied Science
Organisation:	Aston University
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	27 January 2005	Ends:	26 July 2007	Value (£):	182,484
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Complex fluids & soft solids
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The importance of the problem of cloud formation and rain prediction/control can hardly be overestimated. The principal aim of this proposal is to significantly improve the effectiveness of statistical modelling of rain initiation by cloud turbulence through the application of advanced numerical methods and distributed computing technologies recently implemented at Aston University for solving engineering problems in photonics. Air turbulence is currently considered to be one of the mechanisms which accelerate the appearance of large droplets and, eventually, trigger rain. Therefore rain prediction requires a quantitative description of the droplet formation and collision in turbulence. It is believed that rare statistical events corresponding to an occurrence of large particles (drops) may be the key factor, which initiates the rain formation and determines the presence of gases and aerosol particles in the atmospheric air. With the traditional simulation techniques it is practically impossible to accurately estimate the probability of such rare events. We plan to apply Multicanonical Monte Carlo numerical technique to study the influence of the air turbulence on the process of droplet collision and to obtain an exact knowledge of the statistics of the rare fluctuations which is crutial for a quantitative modelling of rain initiation by cloud turbulence.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.aston.ac.uk