Plenary Speakers

Professor Catherine O'Sullivan

Prof.  Catherine O'Sullivan is a Professor of Particulate Soil Mechanics.  She is currently head of the Geotechnics Section of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College. She completed her PhD studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked as a geotechnical engineering California.  Recognition for her research includes the 2015 Géotechnique lecture, the 2016 Shamsher Prakash Research Award, and the 2023 Alert lecture and medal.  Catherine is Editor in Chief of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.  She is the author of  Particulate DEM: A geomechanics perspective and has contributed to over 120 journal papers. 

Talk Title: Coupled phenomena in particulate materials: insights from particle-scale simulations

Abstract

Across many engineering disciplines in which granular or particulate materials are encountered engineers need to predict responses of particles with liquids, gasses, and mixtures of liquids and gases in the space between grains.  Arguably the most important idea in modern soil mechanics is the principle of effective stress put forward by Karl Terzaghi just over a century ago in 1923 (Terzaghi, 1923).  The transformation impact of this principle on soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering (e.g. Clayton et al., 1995) reflects both the importance and challenge of accounting for the interaction between the solid and liquid phases in soil, but also in other particulate materials.  Apart from the multi-phase nature of these materials, the influence of temperature changes and chemistry may also be significant in many cases (e.g. Gens, 2010).  A comprehensive model would account for thermal, hydraulic, mechanical and chemical (THMC) couplings.  Despite significant advances our fundamental understanding of the interaction between the phases and phenomena remains incomplete, compromising our ability to accurately model or predict behaviour.

This presentation will discuss the application of discrete element method (DEM) simulations, coarse-grained molecular dynamics, pore-network-modelling, and finite volume method computational fluid dynamics simulations to advance understanding of key coupled phenomena in sand and clay.  The talk will address liquid-particle interactions considering both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, the impact of pore-fluid chemistry on clay behaviour, the response of granular materials to changes in temperature change, and the challenge of accurately modelling the pressure field when the pore-space includes multiple fluid phases.  While the motivation for the research presented is in the remit of geotechnical engineering, the fundamental mechanics are relevant to many applications in chemical, process and mechanical engineering.  Throughout the presentation this more general perspective will be emphasized.

References:

Clayton, C R I Muller Steinhagen, H M Steinhagen, W Powrie, K Terzaghi, And A W Skempton (1995) Terzaghi's theory of consolidation, and the discovery of effective stress. (compiled from the work of K. Terzaghi And A.W. Skempton).  Proceedings Of The Institution Of Civil Engineers - Geotechnical Engineering 1995 113:4, 191-205

Gens, A. (2010) Soil–environment interactions in geotechnical engineering, 47th Rankine Lecture, Géotechnique 60 (1), 3-74

Terzhaghi, K. (1923) Die Berechnung der Durchlassigkeitsziffer des Tones aus Dem Verlauf der Hidrodynamichen Span-Nungserscheinungen, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien; Mathematish-Naturwissen-SchaftilicheKlasse: Mainz, Germany, 1923; pp. 125–138

Professor Neil Sandham

Neil Sandham has been Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southampton since 1999, having previously been at Stanford University (PhD 1989), DLR Göttingen and Queen Mary, University of London. His area of expertise is numerical simulation of transitional and turbulent flows over the full range of speeds from incompressible to hypersonic, with current projects in transonic airfoil flows, flow over surface roughness and high-speed aerodynamics. He was the founding principal investigator of the UK Turbulence Consortium and has served as head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Southampton.

Professor Mark Parsons 

Prof. Mark Parsons joined EPCC, the supercomputing centre at The University of Edinburgh, in 1994 as a software developer working on several industrial contracts following a PhD in Particle Physics undertaken on the LEP accelerator at CERN in Geneva.  In 1997 he became the Centre’s Commercial Manager and subsequently its Commercial Director. Today he is EPCC’s Director and also the Dean of Research Computing at the University of Edinburgh. He has many interests in distributed computing ranging from its industrial use to the provision of pan-European HPC services through the PRACE Research Infrastructure. His research interests include highly distributed data intensive computing and novel hardware design.

Dr Paulo R. Refachinho de Campos - UKACM 2023 Roger Owen Prize

Dr. Paulo R. Refachinho de Campos obtained his MSc degree from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2018, before joining Swansea University. He earned a PhD from both Swansea University and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2023, achieving an Excellent Cum Laude grade. His PhD thesis explores novel meshless methods, particularly the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method, with applications in Fast Solid Dynamics. Since then, Paulo has maintained strong collaborations with Swansea University and the University of Glasgow, resulting in further publications extending the original PhD work into the fields of thermo-coupled events and dynamic fracture. Paulo has also joined Dassault Systemes as a research and development engineer, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of fatigue algorithms in their durability software.

Dr. Paulo R. Refachinho de Campos is the winner of the 2023 UKACM Roger Owen Prize. In his talk, he will present a robust Updated Reference Lagrangian Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics formulation for large strain solid dynamics and dynamic fracture.