Research Projects - Overview

FlotSim

The transition to renewable energies requires a vast amount of minerals and raw materials, such as copper, nickel, or titanium, for example. However, Germany and the European Union have a strong dependency on other countries such as Russia and China on these materials. 

Froth flotation is an integral process to separate valuable minerals from gangue based on the differences in hydrophobicity of the minerals  ... more

GeoReiKa - Geostone cleaning with hydrodynamic cavitation

The use of porous stone types ("geostones") on sidewalks and squares in cities and municipalities is a contribution to reducing land sealing. Due to the water-permeable form of the geostones, the precipitation water percolates locally into the soil and thus reaches the groundwater directly. However, the infiltration capacity of such geosites deteriorates over the course of a few years despite regular surface treatment. In this process, the pores of the geostones become more deeply blocked ... more

Cavitation

The contamination of drinking water by medicaments and hormones becomes an increasing challenge. Although this pollution is constantly rising, there is no feasible technical solution so far. During the project a process will be developed that removes these substances ... more

Models for cleaning simulation

Product diversity is increasing in the food industry. Small batches are requested more and more frequently, which then have to be produced one after the other on the same line. In order to nevertheless meet constantly increasing quality demands, the aspect of plant cleaning is becoming increasingly important....more

Higher Order Time Integration

High-order methods achieve a higher convergence rate than established numerical methods and, hence, offer a large potential for the simultaneous optimization of the speed and accuracy of flow simulations. To exploit this advantage, the orders in space and time must be attuned to each other ...more

Cleaning of chocolate

A deciding factor for the success of the German chocolate industry which belongs to the largest producers and exporters of chocolate in Europe and even worldwide is above all the high quality of the manufactured products. Maintaining quality standards...more

Sediment Transport

Aquatic ecosystem is an important research topic due to its abundance and relevance for the environment. In this context, sediment transport plays a crucial role for various reasons. It sets conditions for flow, transport of matter such as pollutants and nutrients, hence for flora and fauna and ... more

Aquatic canopies

Aquatic ecosystems constitute a topic of high relevance due to their abundance and their various roles on different scales, ranging from the quality of drinking water taken from the local river to the large-scale impact on climate change ... more

Near-wall flow in compressors

Secondary flows in the sidewall area of turbomachines are extremely complex flows. On the other hand they have a large impact on the operating behaviour of such devices, e.g. the stall margin, and the generated losses.
The secondary flow itself consists of several components, such as the horseshoe vortex, the channel vortex, and possibly the tip gap vortex. These interact with each other and form a dynamic system...more

Modelling wood  chip collection

Wood processing differs from traditional machining process in several aspects, where the collection and removal of chips and dust is the largest concern, since cooling fluids cannot be used to wash away this residue due to the material characteristics of wood. Combined with the high energy costs of removing there residues and the hazard they present to the operator and the workplace motivates....more

Particles in microfluidic flows

Streams with higher particle volume concentrations are extremely complex, because of the interactions between the transported particles and the continuous phase. As result, the particle shape and agglomeration are important to the flow modelling, while also influenced by the flow itself ... more

Jet Cleaning

By introducing hygienic aspects into the production processes in the food industry, high quality products become available with reduced consumption of resources. So-called Cleaning in Place (CIP) systems provide automated, reliable and repeatable cleaning processes ... more

Inclusions in flotation processes

Flotation procedures in steel making or mineral processing use adhesion forces at the surface of gas bubbles to collect and float particles from a liquid medium. The inclusion particle interactions among each other and with the bubbles in liquid steel are almost unexplored ... more

Modeling bubbly flows

Many applications in power engineering and metallurgy involve liquid metal two-phase flows. Due to the absence of optical access, there are numerous questions regarding this kind of flow. Especially the flow control by magnetic fields is not clarified in sufficient detail ... more

Safety of spent fuel pools

Up to now, fluid flow and heat transfer in a fuel assembly have been investigated under operating conditions and under conditions of an incident in the reactor. However, the situation of an incident in a spent fuel pool leads to challenging and insufficiently investigated conditions ... more