Materials Physics and Applications DivisionCondensed Matter and Magnet Science, MPA-CMMS

Nonlinear Dynamics

Scott Backhaus – Capability Leader

Robert Ecke (CNLS)
Michael Rivera (D-4)
Jun Chen
Philippe Odier
Jie Zhang

Capability description:

From the swirling arms of galaxies to the mixing of cream in your coffee, the universe evolves through non-linear interactions. In our laboratory we study a wide range of these phenomenon, including mixing in turbulent fluids and flows in granular media. Our studies in fluid mixing occur in both two and three dimensional fluids and probe fundamental questions about turbulent phenomenon as well as questions more specifically targeted to geophysical flows and sequestration science. These turbulent mixing studies are a supporting interest to a large number of LANL's grand challenges, including stockpile stewardship, global climate modeling and energy programs. In the area of granular media we study avalanches, granular flow instabilities and the transition of granular media from a freely flowing state to a jammed state. Granular flow studies are important for both industrial interests where significant amounts of energy are utilized in moving granular materials around, as well as geophysical phenomenon like the jammed/unjammed state (i.e. earthquakes) around a fault line.

Fluid mixing from the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the geophysical overflow experiment.