Research

Complex fluids stuff :

London

Bubble rising in a yield-stress fluid square channel. Upwards direction is on the left of the picture.

I am currently working in the Garbin group at Imperial College London. We are interested in the dynamics of bubble in yield-stress fluids. More specifically, we examine how they rise or get trapped depending on buoyancy-induced stress. One of our goals is to trigger bubble rise at a distance. Our work has offered us to collaborate with :

Lyon

Dynamics of the shear rate of a cornstarch suspension sheared slightly above its shear-thickening threshold (12 Pa) an associated spatio-temporal behaviour (including heterogeneous events circled in red)

I have formerly been working in group 1 of the physics lab of Ens de Lyon. Almost everything is done now, but some papers are still under way for these two topics:

Here are other topics where my contribution is "done":

  • A statistical analysis of what cornstarch does in the "stuck" unsteady state, with Sébastien Manneville and Thomas Gibaud,
  • The fascinating strain-hardening properties of latex, with Sébastien & Thomas, Paul Menut (Montpellier SupAgro & Agro ParisTech), Guilherme de Oliveira Reis, Frédéric Bonfils, Laurent Vaysse (CIRAD, Montpellier) and Christian Sanchez (U. Montpellier),
  • Simultaneous concentration and local velocity in a small-gap Couette geometry, with Sébastien, Steven Meeker, Hugues Bodiguel, Thomas Gallot and Vincent Grenard (the two latter people wrote almost all the code),
  • Sodium caseinate gels under oscillation (LAOS), with Sébastien & Thomas, Bavand Keshavarz (formerly at MIT), Thibaut Divoux and Gareth McKinley,
  • Slip, migration and confinement in model and non-model shear thickening fluids, with Annie Colin (SIMM, ESPCI Paris), Guillaume Chatté (formerly at SIMM) and Anaïs Machado (formerly at LOF, Bordeaux),
  • Secondary instabilities in wormlike micellar solutions, with Sandra Lerouge (MSC, U. Paris Diderot) and Marc-Antoine Fardin (Institut Jacques Monod, U. Paris Diderot).

Directional freezing

(Marseille)

Self-organization near the solidification front

I have previously worked on directional freezing experiments of colloidal or nearly-colloidal suspensions (micron-sized polystyrene particles). We studied the collective inclusion behaviour during directional freezing and the effect of the boundaries on this mechanism along with Alain Pocheau, Marc Georgelin (IRPHÉ, U. Aix-Marseille) and Sylvain Deville (CREE, Saint-Gobain/CNRS).

Turbulence

(Saclay)

SHREK impellers examined by Michel Bon-Mardion (SBT, CEA Grenoble)

In my younger days, I hopped on the french washing machine bandwagon for my PhD Thesis at the SPHYNX laboratory (CEA Saclay, France). More precisely :

  • We examined possible links between statistical mechanics and the turbulent flow observables, in connection with the large scale slow dynamics of the experiment. This has been done with: François Daviaud (PhD advisor), Bérengère Dubrulle (unofficial co-PhD advisor), Davide Faranda and Simon Thalabard.
  • A 4:1, liquid and superfluid helium von Kármán flow has been built ! I had the opportunity to participate to SHREK experiments hosted by the Service des Basses Températures in CEA Grenoble. This collaboration involves multiple researchers thoughout France:
    • Bernard Rousset, Michel Bon Mardion, Pantxo Diribarne, Patrick Bonnay et Alain Girard (SBT, CEA Grenoble)
    • Bernard Hébral, Philippe Roche, Matthieu Gibert (Institut Néel)
    • Julien Salort, Laurent Chevillard, Mickaël Bourgoin et Bernard Castaing (Ens de Lyon)
    • François et Bérengère (CEA Saclay)
    • Éric Herbert (LIED, U. Paris Diderot)
    • Christophe Baudet et Yves Gagne (LEGI, Grenoble)
    • Thierry Lehner (Observatoire de Meudon)

I also like to hear about

  • Granular Matter
  • Active Matter