Internship and thesis proposals
Dynamics of granular rafts in surface gravity waves

Domaines
Condensed matter
Statistical physics
Soft matter
Physics of liquids
Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics
Hydrodynamics/Turbulence/Fluid mechanics

Type of internship
Expérimental et théorique
Description
The dynamics of a floating object in surface gravity waves is a fluid-structure interaction problem of great practical importance, for example in the stability of ships or the drift of ice floes. On a smaller scale, this problem also applies to the drift and dispersion of pollutants (microplastics) in the ocean. Here we are interested in the behavior of "granular rafts" in a surface gravity wave. A granular raft is an assembly of floating particles held together by capillary attraction. We expect that the the competition between the deformation induced by the wave and the capillary cohesion can lead to rich phenomena of reorganization, breakup, or even the emergence of equilibrium shapes. The goal will be to develop and analyze experiments to track the position and shape of granular rafts in surface waves and propose a physical model to describe their behavior. The experiments will take place in a wave tank available at the FAST laboratory, able of generating waves in both the linear and nonlinear regimes (breaking waves, solitons). The geometry of the granular rafts will be investigated through image processing (particle tracking, shape recognition). A detailed characterization of the flow near the floaters can also be obtained via Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Free-Surface Synthetic Schlieren. Finally, a numerical model may be developed to describe the wave-floater coupling and provide a comparison with experimental data.

Contact
Frederic Moisy
Laboratory : FAST - UMR 7608
Team : Instabilités, Ondes et Turbulence
Team Website
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