MMAE Seminar - Investigation of Energetic Granular Flows via Simulations, Experiments and Theory

Armour College of Engineering's Mechanical, Materials & Aerospace Engineering Department will welcome Dr. Anthony Rosato, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Granular Science Laboratory at New Jersey Institute of Technology, on Tuesday, January 19th to present his lecture, Investigation of Energetic Granular Flows via Simulations, Experiments and Theory.

Abstract

Nearly every product or commodity in use is constituted and/or derived from granular materials through mining, agriculture, and/or chemical processing. Consequently, industries involved with the handling and processing of bulk solids contribute substantially to the global economy. The development of predictive paradigms capable of spanning granular flow regimes (i.e., quasi-static to energetic) prevalent in industrial systems poses a formidable scientific challenge due to the enormous complexity of phenomena occurring over widely different time and length scales. In this presentation, we discuss a synergistic methodology that couples discrete simulations, physical experiments and theoretical modeling, with the goal of identifying key parameters, quantities and features of the dynamics that govern flow behavior. The approach is demonstrated via a seemingly simple system consisting of a column of inelastic spheres, subjected to taps in the form of half sine-wave pulses, in which the interplay between diverse time and length scales are central contributors to the column's evolving dynamics.

Biography

Anthony Rosato is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he has served as associate chair of ME, as the founding director (1995-99) of NJIT's Particle Technology Center, and director of the Granular Science Laboratory since 1999. He received a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 1985, and MS degrees in Applied Math and Theoretical & Applied Mechanics from CMU and Northwestern University, respectively. His research in the area of energetic granular flows related to the solids processing industries involves computational and discrete dynamical systems modeling and experimental studies. He has held visiting appointments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Lovelace Institutes, ESPCI in Paris and Stanford University. Dr. Rosato is an ASME Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and Editor-in-Chief of Mechanics Research Communications. He is active with the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute, a member of the American Academy of Mechanics, serves on the Editorial Board of the Americas of Kona – Power & Particle, and is an ASME representative on the Board of the International Hoover Award.