Research Interest

Our research interest covers aspects of constitutive and numerical modelling of complex-structure fluids and their flow processes, and novel but practical developments and applications aerogels as an engineering material. Currently, our research is focused on

  • aerogels from waste industrial materials, include cellulose/cotton wastes (paper and fabric wastes), polyester-based plastics (car tires wastes) and agricultural wastes, and their many practical applications in heat/sound insulations and absorbent materials;
  • fibre-filled systems and their applications in 3D printing;
  • sediment as a thixotropic and yield stress fluid, and its interaction with subseas infrastructure;
  • blood flow modelling considering blood as a suspension of deformable red blood cells, with applications in cell sorting microfluidic devices;
  • particle-based numerical methods, including dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), and smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH).

The research work is supported by the following recent grants:

  • 2016-18: FB Support Grant, Aerogels from Waste Products, $210K;
  • 2018-19: MSRDP-P04 : Biota effects on the environment: an impact source neglected in EIAs – Biotic adaptation to sublethal environmental stress feed back into the physical environment, $200K;
  • 2015-18: SMI, The Interaction Between Sediment Movements Triggered by Submarine Landslide and Pipeline Infrastructures, $456K;
  • 2014-19: NRF, NUS-Keppel Corp Lab, Nodule Harvesting Technology and Impact on the Marine Environment, $3,139 K;
  • 2011-14: A*STAR Constitutive Modelling of Multiphase Fluids, Grant #102 164 0145, $945K;
  • 2011-14: A*STAR Numerical Modelling of Multiphase Fluids, Dissipative Particle Dynamics, Grant #102 164 0146, $605K;
  • 2011-14: A*STAR Multiphase Flow Processes and Experimental Verification, Grant #102 164 0147, $995K;
  • 2011-14: AcRF Tier 1: Viscoelastic Cell Modelling– Relaxation Spectrum and Numerical Modelling Using Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) Approach, $180K.