Abstract
Turbulent flows are ubiquitous in nature and technology. Turbulent flows govern the transport of particulate matter in nature. For example, in atmospheric flows turbulence impacts the dynamics of aerosols, droplets, spores and of the living world by either chemo-attractant transport or transport of the insects themselves. In marine flows examples include the bubble dynamics that governs the uptake of oxygen and carbon dioxide at the ocean air interface, or the impact of turbulence on the life of phyto- and zoo-plankton, or the spread of pollutants in the oceans and estuaries. Turbulence is equally important for technology from process engineering in chemical and pharmaceutical industries to energy transport and energy generation.
The COST Action MP0806 'Particles in Turbulence' has as the primary objective the support of the fundamental research on the statistical properties of particle transport in turbulent flows. The Action provides excellent opportunities for the exchange of ideas by bringing together scientists from different areas of research and applications, or different views on the problem. The COST Action MP0806 organizes several events annually. The conference held at the University of Potsdam from 16 to 18 March 2011 was the main meeting of the Action in 2011. In total 87 researchers from 18 countries (of which 12 were European) met and presented their work, discussed new ideas on theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches, as well as on applications to various scientific domains. The conference attracted also a number of participants from outside the COST Action.
The scientific presentations focused on inertial and finite-size particles, particle collisions, as well as advection and reaction in simple and complex flow geometries. Very interesting results were presented at the forefront of the field: the increasing computational power combined with novel numerical techniques now allows for the first time simulation of the dynamics of finites size particles, of bubbles, or of the large scale dynamics of convective clouds. Similarly the technical evolution provided major leaps on the experimental side. High-speed cameras, refined turbulence setups, specially prepared particles, etc allow high-precision measurements of larger span in space- and time-scales and quantitative comparison with simulations and theoretical models. The formation of rain, one of the key ingredients of climate models, still attracts considerable attention and this topic motivated many studies presented during the conference. Finally, new theoretical developments are emerging further demonstrating the vitality of this research field.
In total, 83 contributed talks were presented (60 presentations have been made available for download from the COST Action website, http://mp0806.cineca.it), 16 keynote speakers gave plenary talks, while 3 specifically invited speakers provided overviews on important application areas: aerosol control in nuclear safety applications ('Postulated Nuclear Accidents: Evaluating Radioactive Releases with Special Emphasis on Particulate' by Martin Kissane), formation of rain in warm clouds ('Growth of cloud droplets and raindrops in turbulent clouds' by by Wojciech Grabowski) and evolution of biological aggregates in marine environments ('Aggregation and fragmentation of marine aggregates in random flows' by Ulrike Feudel).
The scientific level of all presentations was very high and participants really enjoyed the conference despite (or maybe thanks to) the very intense program. Motivated by the very rapid pace of progress in the field, we have scheduled another conference for next year to be held at Lorentz Center in Leiden (The Netherlands). We expect that this conference shall be the start of a conference series on 'Particles in Turbulence'.
The conference would have neither been possible without the financial support of the COST Office, nor without the contagious enthusiasm of the many participants. We would also like to thank the students from Potsdam University for their exquisite help. We are very thankful to Anita Peeters for her unwavering support and help in the organization of this particular event, as well as, for the efforts ensuring the smooth running of the COST Action 'Particles in turbulence'. Markus Abel, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Federico Toschi
The PDF files of the conference program and conference poster are attached.