Engineers are building a new generation of computer models that can simulate the behaviour of complex flows containing multiple phases—such as bubbles in a liquid, droplets in a gas, or solid particles suspended in a fluid. These multiphase flows are central to a vast range of technologies, from microfluidics and manufacturing to oil-and-gas extraction, nuclear safety, and medical procedures like lithotripsy (breaking kidney stones with shock waves) and laser surgery. Current models rely heavily on empirical correlations and struggle to predict behaviour reliably across different scales, from microscopic bubble dynamics to pipe-wide flow patterns. This lack of predictive power forces engineers to rely on expensive trial-and-error testing. The MEMPHIS programme aims to create a single, transparent modelling framework that links inputs directly to predictions, allowing researchers to systematically identify and correct errors. It will run on supercomputers with up to a million cores, using adaptive three-dimensional resolution and multi-scale physics. If successful, the framework could transform how industries design processes—for example, by enabling reliable prediction of flow regime transitions in oil-and-gas pipelines or providing insights into novel manufacturing techniques. The work is primarily fundamental science, but its general framework could eventually address industrial and environmental challenges far beyond the two demonstration areas.
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This project is an opportunity to harness the synergy between world-leading scientists from four prestigious institutions to create the next generation modelling tools for complex multiphase flows. These flows are central to micro-fluidics, virtually every processing and manufacturing technology, oil-and-gas and nuclear applications, and biomedical applications such as lithotripsy and laser-surgery cavitation. The ability to predict the behaviour of multiphase flows reliably will address a major challenge of tremendous economic, scientific, and societal benefit to the UK. The Programme will achieve this goal by developing a single modelling framework that establishes, for the first time, a transparent linkage between input (models and/or data) and prediction; this will allow systematic error-source identification, and, therefore, directed, optimal, model-driven experimentation, to maximise prediction accuracy. The framework will also feature optimal selection of massively-parallelisable numerical methods, capable of running efficiently on 10^5-10^6 core supercomputers, optimally-adaptive, three-dimensional resolution, and the most sophisticated multi-scale physical models. This framework will offer unprecedented resolution of multi-scale, multiphase phenomena, minimising the reliance on correlations and empiricism. The investigators' synergy, and their long-standing industrial collaborations, will ensure that this Programme will result in a paradigm-shift in multiphase flow research worldwide. We will demonstrate our capabilities in two areas of strategic importance to the UK: by providing insights into novel manufacturing processes, and reliable prediction of multiphase flow regime transitions in the oil-and-gas industry. Our framework will be sufficiently general to address a number of other industrial and environmental global challenges, which we detail herein.
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