Alexandra Hardy wins poster presentation competition at the UK Fluids Conference

Congratulations to Alexandra Hardy, winner of the poster presentation competition at the UK Fluids Conference, held in Swansea from September 9-11, 2024. The UK Fluids Conference 2024 brought together all those involved in fluid mechanics research in the UK, including PhD students, post-doctoral researchers as well as established researchers. The abstract of the poster reads as follows. 

"We present a two-phase field model and a hybrid particle-phase field model to simulate dilute colloidal sedimentation and flotation near a liquid-gas interface (or fluid-fluid interface in general). Both models are coupled to the incompressible Stokes equation, which is solved numerically using a combination of sine and regular Fourier transforms to account for the no-slip boundary conditions at the boundaries. The continuum two-phase field model allows us to analytically solve the equilibrium interfacial profile using a perturbative approach, demonstrating excellent agreement with numerical simulations. Notably, we show that strong coupling to particle dynamics can significantly alter the liquid-gas interface, thereby modifying the liquid-gas interfacial tension. In particular, we show that the renormalized surface tension is monotonically decreasing with increasing colloidal particle concentration and decreasing buoyant mass."