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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/N18352/01
Title: BUBBLE MECHANICS IN FOAMS
Principal Investigator: Grassia, Dr PS
Other Investigators:
Clarke, Professor N Cilliers, Professor J
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Chemical Engineering
Organisation: UMIST
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 31 March 2001 Ends: 30 March 2003 Value (£): 63,810
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Multiphase Flow
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Manufacturing Chemicals
Water No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Foams occur in many industrial operations, such as water treatment, oil-gas production and mineral processing. In order to improve the effectiveness of these processes, it is important to be able to model the bubble dynamics within a foam. The standard models (see references [4, 5, 6, 7]), employ volume constraints on individual bubbles and angle constraints at vertices where bubbles meet. These constraints are used to deduce the vertex locations and the curvature of the bubble lamellae. However, if one exploits the translational and rotational invariance properties of the foam as a whole, the standard models may be shown to be mathematically ill-posed. Thus it is timely to reconsider the bubble dynamics problem from first principles, so as to develop a well-posed alternative. A formal classical mechanics approach to the problem requires the calculation of two quantities: the Lagrangian (typically the energy penalty associated with creating bubble surface) and the viscous dissipation (usually associated with bubble vertex motion). Using these two ingredients, one can develop a system of equations rigorously describing the bubble dynamics. The researchproject will first derive and study these equations in systems of just a few bubbles, and afterwards will simulate a foam containing a large number of bubbles.
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