Wet Particulate Materials - Flow or Fracture? Most advanced materials are produced from starting materials in the form of fine particles. Powders, especially in ceramic engineering, are first processed wet into near-final shape. Improved understanding of the fracture of particle networks is critical in order to process nano-sized advanced ceramic materials for use in solar energy harvesting and extreme heat engine applications as well as minimising drying cracks in paints and coatings. The resea ....Wet Particulate Materials - Flow or Fracture? Most advanced materials are produced from starting materials in the form of fine particles. Powders, especially in ceramic engineering, are first processed wet into near-final shape. Improved understanding of the fracture of particle networks is critical in order to process nano-sized advanced ceramic materials for use in solar energy harvesting and extreme heat engine applications as well as minimising drying cracks in paints and coatings. The research aims to identify the fundamental link between particle network strength and structure and the fracture of wet powder bodies. The microscopic mechanisms that control the behaviour will be investigated with a particular focus on toughening mechanisms including the influence of plasticity.Read moreRead less
Novel and cost effective mixing technique for anaerobic digesters in municipal wastewater treatment plants. The mixing system and the models that will be developed in this project will be useful in improving the energy efficiency of anaerobic digesters operated in many towns and cities. These improvements will help to reduce greenhouse emissions significantly and also lead to reduced household water bills, as wastewater treatment costs will decrease.
Controlling hydrate slurry flow to enable deepwater oil and gas production. This project aims to investigate the plugging of hydrate slurries in pipelines to determine under what conditions they will flow satisfactorily without forming a blockage. Hydrate blockages are expensive and hazardous occurrences in oil and gas operations, so current prevention systems aim to avoid hydrate formation altogether through over-design. These over-designed hydrate prevention systems are extremely expensive to ....Controlling hydrate slurry flow to enable deepwater oil and gas production. This project aims to investigate the plugging of hydrate slurries in pipelines to determine under what conditions they will flow satisfactorily without forming a blockage. Hydrate blockages are expensive and hazardous occurrences in oil and gas operations, so current prevention systems aim to avoid hydrate formation altogether through over-design. These over-designed hydrate prevention systems are extremely expensive to build and costly to run during the operations phase. The project intends to examine the behaviour of hydrate slurry flow as a function of the oil's properties, amount of water and degree of turbulence. Outcomes are intended to be a sophisticated approach to avoiding hydrate blockages that is safe but more efficient and less costly.Read moreRead less
A coupled finite volume method for viscoelastic flow problems on highly-skewed unstructured meshes: a computational rheology revolution. Commercial tools are unavailable for 21st century industry to analyse complex flow processes involving viscoelastic materials. Using fabrication of microstructured polymer optical fibre as a key case study, a coupled finite volume methodology holds the key for the next generation of computational rheology simulators.
Encoding Interactions and Printability into Hairy Colloidal Biomaterials. Printing mixtures of live cells and biomaterials (or 'BioInks') to make bespoke engineered tissues has the potential to enable personalised platforms for therapeutic discovery and organ replacement. Using a novel high throughput approach to materials synthesis, BioInk design and process optimisation, this project aims to discover new biomaterials and printing nozzles to help realise this potential. It will produce new insi ....Encoding Interactions and Printability into Hairy Colloidal Biomaterials. Printing mixtures of live cells and biomaterials (or 'BioInks') to make bespoke engineered tissues has the potential to enable personalised platforms for therapeutic discovery and organ replacement. Using a novel high throughput approach to materials synthesis, BioInk design and process optimisation, this project aims to discover new biomaterials and printing nozzles to help realise this potential. It will produce new insights in colloid science, cell-laden biomaterials design, and BioInk processing. Structure-property-function guides for colloid-based BioInks and quality-assured bioprinting as outcomes represent significant benefits for researchers and industries alike engaged in biofabrication, cell therapy and biotherapeutics.Read moreRead less
Reducing land and infrastructure requirements for water evaporation from biosludge through dry stacking. Melbourne's wastewater treatment plants have limited capacity in their evaporation pans to dry residual solids from wastewater treatment processes. This project will significantly improve the efficiency of new pans by providing an alternative operating method, dry stacking, which has delivered considerable benefits to the mineral industry.
Biosolid flow, separation and activity in anaerobic lagoons. This project aims to develop a fundamental model of the complex, non-steady state flow behaviour in anaerobic lagoons. The project will develop new operating procedures and designs for large municipal, industrial and agricultural anaerobic lagoons. This will improve the efficiency of anaerobic digestion and reduce wastewater treatment costs, as well as increase renewable and sustainable biogas production. The intended outcome is a va ....Biosolid flow, separation and activity in anaerobic lagoons. This project aims to develop a fundamental model of the complex, non-steady state flow behaviour in anaerobic lagoons. The project will develop new operating procedures and designs for large municipal, industrial and agricultural anaerobic lagoons. This will improve the efficiency of anaerobic digestion and reduce wastewater treatment costs, as well as increase renewable and sustainable biogas production. The intended outcome is a validated 3D model that captures the physical and biological complexities of anaerobic lagoons. This will impact the design and operation of partner organisation lagoons, reducing capital and operating costs and improving biogas production.Read moreRead less
Supramolecular assembly of chromophores:the effects of nucleation kinetics on their molecular packing, fibre structure and light harvesting efficiency. This project aims to reveal the effects of nucleation kinetics of chromophores on their molecular packing, fibre structure and energy transfer efficiency, which are significant to the design of low cost and lightweight materials for high efficiency solar energy harvesting. The knowledge to be acquired addresses the bottleneck governing the effici ....Supramolecular assembly of chromophores:the effects of nucleation kinetics on their molecular packing, fibre structure and light harvesting efficiency. This project aims to reveal the effects of nucleation kinetics of chromophores on their molecular packing, fibre structure and energy transfer efficiency, which are significant to the design of low cost and lightweight materials for high efficiency solar energy harvesting. The knowledge to be acquired addresses the bottleneck governing the efficiency of a class of novel materials that mimic the natural light harvesting systems. It will bring about health, economic and environmental benefits to Australia. This project will foster multidisciplinary collaborations between world class research centres.Read moreRead less
Food structure design. Food structure design. This project aims to use fundamental studies in multi-scale rheology and biotribology, surface sciences, soft matter physics and protein chemistry to develop new measurement capabilities and knowledge for rational food structure design. This research is intended to enable researchers and industry to quantify how oral processing (including saliva) transforms food during consumption, and to provide new instrumental measurements and know-how that assist ....Food structure design. Food structure design. This project aims to use fundamental studies in multi-scale rheology and biotribology, surface sciences, soft matter physics and protein chemistry to develop new measurement capabilities and knowledge for rational food structure design. This research is intended to enable researchers and industry to quantify how oral processing (including saliva) transforms food during consumption, and to provide new instrumental measurements and know-how that assists in defining sensory percepts in dairy foods and beverages such as creaminess in full, reduced or non-fat systems and grittiness in high protein systems.Read moreRead less
Linking topology and rheology for designing supramolecular polymer networks. This project aims to develop a foundation for understanding how microscopic topology and intermolecular interactions control the flow behaviour of supramolecular polymer networks. Brownian dynamics algorithms will be developed to unravel the complex dynamics of the network and calibrated by comparison with carefully designed experiments. The expected outcome of the project is a quantitative framework for connecting the ....Linking topology and rheology for designing supramolecular polymer networks. This project aims to develop a foundation for understanding how microscopic topology and intermolecular interactions control the flow behaviour of supramolecular polymer networks. Brownian dynamics algorithms will be developed to unravel the complex dynamics of the network and calibrated by comparison with carefully designed experiments. The expected outcome of the project is a quantitative framework for connecting the molecular structure and energy landscape with resulting macroscopic properties. This project should yield significant benefit in the rational design of supramolecular systems in which the thermorheological properties can be tuned over a wide range of force/time scales with applications spanning from enhanced oil recovery to injectable hydrogels.Read moreRead less