HetSys News
Professor James Sprittles (HetSys Supervisor) Awarded EPSRC Open Fellowship for Research on “From Nano-Films to Clouds”
This ambitious Fellowship will investigate how the outcomes of droplet collisions, controlled by nanometre-thin gas or vapour films, influence phenomena across an extraordinary range of scales—from the formation of raindrops in clouds to the behaviour of sprays in industrial and technological settings.
At the nanoscale, whether a thin gas film between approaching drops collapses determines whether droplets bounce, merge, or fragment. While these events appear simple in isolation, their cumulative effect governs critical processes in weather systems, climate modelling, crop spraying, combustion, and advanced manufacturing.
The Fellowship will:
-
Develop new physical and computational models that embed nanoscale effects into droplet-collision dynamics.
-
Produce open-source simulation frameworks capable of predicting realistic collision outcomes.
-
Integrate these insights into weather and spray models, in collaboration with partners including the Met Office, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and Syngenta.
Professor Sprittles commented:
“Collisions between droplets are at the heart of so many natural and engineered systems, yet their outcomes are still difficult to predict. This Fellowship will bridge scales from nanometres to kilometres, helping us understand—and ultimately control—these complex multiphase processes.”
The Fellowship will support two postdoctoral researchers and PhD students at Warwick, offering exciting opportunities for those interested in modelling, simulation, and the physics of multiphase flows.