International Francqui Chair - Prof. Rodney Fox at UCL

International Francqui Chair granted to Prof. Dr. Rodney FOX

Professor Rodney Fox is a Distinguished Professor in Engineering at Iowa State University.  In 2016, he was selected for the North American Mixing Forum Award for Excellence and Sustained Contributions to Mixing Science and Practice, and the Shell Particle technology Forum Thomas Baron Award.

He has made numerous ground-breaking contributions to the field of multiphase and reactive flow modeling. The Fox group spearheaded many fundamental advances in the development of novel computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models to overcome specific scientific challenges faced in the chemical and petroleum industries.  He pioneered the use of in situ tabulation for efficiently handling complex chemistry in detailed multiphase reactor models, and developed powerful quadrature-based moment methods for treating distribution functions (particle size, bubble size, etc.) required for CFD models of single and multiphase reactors.  The impact of Fox's work extends far beyond chemical engineering and touches every technological area dealing with turbulent flow and chemical reactions (e.g., combustion, atmospheric science, nuclear fuel processing, etc.). His first book, Computational Models for Turbulent Reacting Flows, published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in 2003, offers an authoritative treatment of the field.  His second CUP book in 2013, Computational Models for Polydisperse Particulate and Multiphase Systems, provides a comprehensive treatment of CFD model for disperse multiphase flows.

Lecture program at UCL :

• Tuesday February 21, 2017 (BARB 11) : Introduction to disperse multiphase flows. Mesoscale description of polydisperse flows.
• Tuesday February 28, 2017 (MERC 12) : Quadrature-based moment methods (QBMM). The generalized population balance equation.
• Tuesday March 7, 2017 (MERC 12) : Mesoscale models for physical and chemical processes QBMM for spatially homogeneous flows.
• Tuesday March 21, 2017 (BARB 11) : QBMM for spatially inhomogeneous flows. High-order, realizable, kinetic-based, finite-volume methods.
• Tuesday March 28, 2017 (BARB 11) : Turbulence modeling for disperse multiphase flows. Application to fine-particle formation.
• Tuesday April 4, 2017 (BARB 11) : Application to bubbly flows. Application to gas-particle flows.