Postdoctoral fellow Advanced experimental characterization of hydrodynamics and mixing in Taylor-Couette flows of complex fluids

Public establishment belonging to IMT (Institut Mines-Télécom), placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, IMT Nord Europe has three main objectives: providing our students with ethically responsible engineering practice enabling them to solve 21st century issues, carrying out our R&D activities leading to outstanding innovations and supporting territorial development through innovation and entrepreneurship. Ideally positioned at the heart of Europe, 1 hour away from Paris, 30 min from Brussels and 1h30 from London, IMT Nord Europe has strong ambitions to become a main actor of the current industrial transitions, digital and environmental, by combining education and research on engineering and digital technologies.

Located on two main campuses dedicated to research and education in Douai and Lille, IMT Nord Europe offers research facilities of almost 20,000m² in the following areas:

-              Digital science,

-              Energy and Environment,

-              Materials and Processes.

For more details, visit the School’s website : www.imt-nord-europe.fr

The position is to be filled within the Energy and Environmental Center for Education, Research and Innovation – CERI EE (https://recherche.imt-nord-europe.fr/energie-environnement-ceri/). This center includes, in addition to around fifty PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, 30 permanent academics, 12 engineers and technicians, and 2 administrative assistants. It is structured into three thematic areas and two technical and expertise hubs. The selected candidate's missions will be carried out within the thematic area “Energy, Fluids, and Transfers,” whose activities focus on the decarbonization of society. This includes the analysis of mechanisms for intensifying transfer phenomena in thermo-fluidic components, at various scales, for applications in the fields of process engineering and energy. She/he will join in particular the Complex Fluid Flows lab, that conducts research on complex fluids, complex flows, and their role in transfer and process intensification.

BRIEF:  

Numerous industrial and environmental processes involve complex fluids, flowing in conditions where heat, mass, or momentum transport need to be optimized. Examples include bioprocesses, agri-food, pharmaceutical, advanced material, or microfluidic technology sectors. When properly harnessed, hydrodynamic instabilities can generate spatiotemporal flow structures that substantially enhance mixing, scalar transport, and transfer rates, thereby improving the performance of reaction, cultivation, separation, and transfer processes.

However, the non-Newtonian behaviour of these fluids profoundly modifies the nature, onset, structure, and dynamics of flow instabilities [1], [2], making their prediction and control particularly challenging. As a result, the relationship between flow physics, mixing efficiency, and transfer performance remains insufficiently understood [3]. Addressing these challenges requires access to spatially and temporally resolved measurements of both flow and scalar fields, which can be obtained through advanced optical diagnostic techniques [4], [5], [6].

Owing to its simple and well-controlled geometry, combined with a remarkable diversity of instability mechanisms, the Taylor–Couette flow (flow generated between two concentric cylinders rotating independently) constitutes an ideal model system for investigating the links between hydrodynamic instabilities, transport phenomena, and mixing efficiency in complex fluids [2], [5], [7], while enabling the development and application of state-of-the-art optical characterization methods.

The general objectives of this postdoctoral project are to

• Develop and implement cutting edge optical methods (e.g., Laser Induced Fluorescence – see figure 1) to probe mixing dynamics and local flow properties
• Use those methods to study instabilities, flow structure, and mixing in TC flow of non-Newtonian fluids

[1]          S. S. Datta et al., « Perspectives on viscoelastic flow instabilities and elastic turbulence », Phys Rev Fluids, vol. 7, no 8, p. 080701, août 2022, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.080701.

[2]          M. A. Fardin, C. Perge, et N. Taberlet, « “The hydrogen atom of fluid dynamics” – introduction to the Taylor–Couette flow for soft matter scientists », Soft Matter, vol. 10, no 20, p. 3523‑3535, avr. 2014, doi: 10.1039/C3SM52828F.

[3]          T. Burghelea et V. Bertola, Transport Phenomena in Complex Fluids, 1st ed. 2020 édition. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2020.

[4]          C. Carré, T. Lacassagne, N. E. Hani, et S. A. Bahrani, « Mixing efficiency in Taylor-Couette flow of complex suspensions », Exp. Fluids, vol. 67, no 3, p. 30, mars 2026, doi: 10.1007/s00348-026-04187-1.

[5]          T. Boulafentis, T. Lacassagne, N. Cagney, et S. Balabani, « Experimental insights into elasto-inertial transitions in Taylor–Couette flows », Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Math. Phys. Eng. Sci., vol. 381, no 2243, p. 20220131, janv. 2023, doi: 10.1098/rsta.2022.0131.

[6]          T. Boulafentis, T. Lacassagne, N. Cagney, et S. Balabani, « Coherent structures of elastoinertial instabilities in Taylor–Couette flows », J. Fluid Mech., vol. 986, p. A27, mai 2024, doi: 10.1017/jfm.2024.163.

[7]          C. Kang et P. Mirbod, « Flow instability and transitions in Taylor–Couette flow of a semidilute non-colloidal suspension », J. Fluid Mech., vol. 916, juin 2021, doi: 10.1017/jfm.2021.75.

Ph.D in fluid mechanics, soft matter, physics, or any related field

Ph.D defense less that 3 year prior to contract commencement.