Abstract: Highly concentrated emulsions are widely used in industries like petroleum, paint, cosmetics, food and dairy processing, liquid explosives, pharmaceuticals, and construction, where the presence of two immiscible phases is essential. In the present work, experimental and modeling studies on highly viscous fluids are reported over a wide range of scales, from molecular adsorption, to meso-scale droplet dynamics, and to macroscopic flow in pipelines. Adsorption kinetics of different types of emulsifiers are explored and modelled at solvent-water interfaces. The rheological properties of high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs), comprising polydisperse aqueous droplets in oil, have been characterized. Further, experimental studies are reported on pipeline transportation of highly viscous fluids (furnace oil and HIPEs) as a water-lubricated core-annular flow (CAF), in a horizontal pipe.
About the Speaker: Dr. Sumit Tripathi is a Ph.D., jointly from IIT Bombay (India) and Monash University (Australia), and has recently completed a postdoctoral work at Monash University, Australia. Both of his Ph.D. and postdoctoral projects were funded by Australian industries and gave him excellent opportunities to work on industry relevant problems in a multidisciplinary and ‘industry-academia’ collaborative environment. He is an M.Tech. from IIT Roorkee, and B.Tech. from C.S.A. University Kanpur. He was awarded with Chancellor’s Gold Medal for securing first rank in B.Tech.(Mechanical Engineering). Currently, Dr. Tripathi is working as Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department at College of Engineering, Pune, India. His research interests include experiments in fluid mechanics, rheology of complex