Complex fluids present two key challenges: how a small fraction of interacting particles conspire to dominate their flow properties, and how those properties influence particular flows.

For granular and foam systems we are developing explicit particle based simulations of the flow properties, whilst for soft (Brownian) systems we are developing wavelet-based techniques to incorporate long range hydrodynamic coupling.

Simulating flow through particular geometries we use up-scaled pseudo particles (versions of Dissipative Particle Dynamics) to capture viscoelastic and intertial effects.

A Grand Challenge clinical application drawing on an integration of these techniques is the modelling of blood flow in capillaries, where we have a size hierarchy of polymers, platelets and deformable blood cells as wide as the capillary width.

Application areas:

• flow of people
• flow of cars
• granular materials
• diagnosis of cancer, hypertension, heart disease
  

People:

• Robin Ball
• Stefan Grosskinsky