Project Description

Since the early 1990s, inkjet printers have been common household items due to their low cost and wide availability. Starting with this humble and mostly single-use beginning, inkjet printing has spread into innumerable areas of science and engineering. From the on-demand printing of 3D and programmable structures to additive manufacturing of energetic materials, thin films of fluids with complex rheology must be manipulated and deposited on substrates to exacting specifications. Most biological fluids (e.g., blood) are also non-Newtonian and their manipulation in lab-on-a-chip point-of-care diagnostics requires understanding their interaction with soft structures, including compliant microchannels conveying the flow. The proposed project seeks to analyze, via advanced mathematical techniques and high-precision scientific computing, the underlying universal fluid mechanics in micro- and nanoscale flows of non-Newtonian fluids. 

Specifically, this project’s aim is to stimulate collaborative research centered on a broad set of fundamental questions: How do fluid-structure interactions and/or external mechanical actuation set pinch-off dynamics when drops are ejected from nozzles? Do universal scaling laws for film rupture on hard substrates apply to rupture on soft/compliant substrates? The mathematical analysis and simulations will provide novel insights into how non-Newtonian thin fluid films can be manipulated to advance modern micro- and nano technologies.

Start Date 

May 2020 or soon thereafter

Postdoc Qualifications 

The postdoctoral researcher should have a degree in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied/Computational Mathematics, or equivalent. The research requires a deep background in fluid mechanics, complex fluids, numerical methods, and mathematical analysis of PDE.

Co-advising 

Ivan C. Christov
christov@purdue.edu
School of Mechanical Engineering
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/People/ptProfile?resource_id=134738

Osman Basaran
obasaran@purdue.edu
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/people/ptProfile?resource_id=4239

References 

“Nonstandard Inkjets,” Osman A. Basaran, Haijing Gao, and Pradeep P. Bhat, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 45 (2013) 85–113 doi:10.1146/annurev-fluid-120710-101148 

“Self-similar rupture of thin films of power-law fluids on a substrate,” V. Garg, P.M. Kamat, C. R. Anthony, S. S. Thete and O. A. Basaran, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 826 (2017) 455–483 doi:10.1017/jfm.2017.446. 

“Non-Newtonian fluid–structure interactions: Static response of a microchannel due to internal flow of a power-law fluid,” Vishal Anand, Joshua David JR and Ivan C. Christov, Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 264 (2019) 62–72 doi:10.1016/j.jnnfm.2018.12.008; e-print arXiv:1809.09065. 

“Solving Nonlinear Parabolic Equations by a Strongly Implicit Finite-Difference Scheme: Applications to the Finite-Speed Spreading of Non-Newtonian Viscous Gravity Currents,” Aditya A. Ghodgaonkar and Ivan C. Christov to appear in Advanced Wave Mathematics II, eds. T. Soomere and A. Berezovski, Springer Series on Mathematics of Planet Earth 6 (2019); e-print arXiv:1903.07568.