IUTAM Symposium on "Particles, Drops and Bubbles in Stratified Environments"

Rigid or deformable bodies moving in the presence of steeply or continuously stratified fluid layers are encountered in a broad range of situations, both in geophysical and engineering contexts. Typical examples are plankton, marine snow or Lagrangian buoys drifting in oceans, plumes ascending through the Earth's mantle, submarine vehicles moving close to pycnoclines, drops rising during oil spills, bubble-induced removal of impurities during steel elaboration or gravity-driven encapsulation processes. Depending on the problem, discontinuities or inhomogeneous layers deeply impact the wake characteristics, energy consumption, settling rate or dispersion characteristics of inert or self-propelled bodies and living micro-organisms. The corresponding fluid environments span a wide range of Reynolds and Péclet numbers. Immiscible fluids introduce an additional level of complexity, owing to effects of the viscosity contrast and the capillary-to-buoyancy force ratio. All this leads to a very rich variety of configurations and to difficult modeling issues. Understanding the underlying fluid mechanical aspects, especially the specific wake structure, the related instabilities and in the end their effect on the loads experienced by the body, is key to improving predictions and sometimes designing control strategies in areas ranging from marine pollution and oceanic biochemical cycling to the design of liquid-liquid extraction and coating processes. Hydrodynamic couplings controlling collective effects in multi-body problems and suspension dynamics also have to be considered. The aim of this Symposium is to bring together internationally renowned scientists from all horizons to foster exchanges and strengthen cross-disciplinary work among physicists, applied mathematicians, geophysicists, oceanographers, engineers and marine biologists. The Symposium will give the opportunity to appreciate and compare the different approaches that have been recently followed or are currently developed, thus giving a global overview of the most significant advances in the field. It will also help identify the main open issues and research pathways for the future. The program will consist of keynote lectures, regular invited talks and poster sessions.