Multiphysical Couplings and Transfers – COMET

The team studies various physical phenomena resulting from inhomogeneities of temperature, density, electric current or magnetic field, and their coupling in volume or at interfaces, and at relevant scales.
The group uses numerical simulations and laboratory experiments, complemented by analytical and theoretical interpretations.
This work can be applied to energy conversion and storage, heat transfer and energy process optimization.

In more detail, the topics covered are:

• Magnetohydrodynamics (MHDMagnétohydrodynamique), which describes the motion of an electrically conductive fluid in which the velocity and magnetic induction fields are coupled by Lorentz’s force and Ohm’s law;
• Convection, which occurs in flows in the presence of temperature or density gradients, with or without phase change. Energy systems (secondary refrigeration, photovoltaic panels) are concerned;
• transfers at interfaces, cryonanothermics and two-phase flows; this ranges from the Kapitza thermal resistance existing at the silicon/superfluid helium interface to the numerical modeling of incompressible or compressible two-phase flows at low Mach number;
• the phenomena at work in thermo-acoustic machines, in particular within a heat pump intended for land vehicles, or in free surface systems (calefaction or super-hydrophobic wetting).