Topic: granular materials

Develop magnetic-resonance imaging and particle-tracking methods to investigate how granular materials flow, mix and deform. The doctoral project combines experimental equipment development with studies of soft and irregular particles.

Diversity in the natural world emerges from the collective behavior of large numbers of interacting objects. Statistical physics provides the framework relating microscopic to macroscopic properties. A fundamental assumption underlying this approach is that we have complete knowledge of the interactions between the microscopic entities. But what if that, even though possible in principle becomes impossible in practice ? Can we still construct a framework for describing their collective behavior ? Dense suspensions and granular materials are two often quoted examples where we face this challeng