ABSTRACT

Multiphase granular flows are encountered ubiquitously in nature as well as energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries. Despite their importance, these flows are poorly understood in part due to a lack of robust experimental techniques for detailed characterization of the fluid and particle motion in 3D systems. Here, we present the capabilities of multichannel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to image particle concentration and velocity fields non-invasively in 3D granular flows with millisecond resolution. We use these capabilities to image previously unseen flow phenomena in fluidized beds and quantify the effects of changing parameters such as gas flow rate, particle size and amount of liquid injected on bed hydrodynamics. We demonstrate the ability for MRI to measure gas, liquid and particle flows separately in multiphase granular flow systems to test assumptions in computational and empirical models.  We also use computational modeling to identify the mechanisms underlying anomalous flow phenomena. Further, we demonstrate the ability of vibration combined with gas flow to create controllable structured flows in granular materials and investigate bubble behavior in dense suspensions.

BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:

Chris Boyce received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Physics at MIT and then studied at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, where he received the Dankwerts-Pergamon prize for the best PhD thesis in Chemical Engineering. After his PhD, he held postdoctoral research positions at Princeton University and ETH Zurich. He started as an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia in January 2

MOST RECENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Multiphase flow, magnetic resonance imaging, computational modeling