Our research has contributed to subjects as diverse as the scale-up of circulating fluidized beds under atmospheric and pressurized conditions; the behavior of pressurized cyclone separators; the interactions of gas and solid particles in pneumatic transport of particles; the impact of small solid spheres; the heat transfer in suspensions of gases and agitated solids; flows of grains on inclines; segregation and flow of grains in microgravity; mechanisms of particle interactions in the confined agitated granular, the water budget, dust inoculation, and seepage through desert sand dunes; "eruption currents," which include powder snow avalanches; and unsaturated porous media.
We have also developed capacitance instrumentation that records solid concentration, velocity and water content in snow avalanches, fluidized suspensions, sand dunes and alpine snow packs.
Applications of this research are found in Chemical Engineering (e.g., catalytic cracking, solids transport, solid combustion) and Geophysics (e.g., snow avalanches, desertification). Our experimental facilities have included a circulating fluidized bed, a large inclined chute, a flume, and a unique setup to record restitution and friction in the impacts of small spheres.
We conducted field experiments on NASA's microgravity airplane, at the ZARM free-fall tower in Bremen, in the Sahara desert, and in mountains.
