Show archive
Leen van Wijngaarden Prize 2023 for Dr. ir. Sander Huisman
The Leen van Wijngaarden Prize for excellence in Fluid Mechanics is awarded every four years for a researcher less than 40 years of age affiliated with one of the groups of the JM Burgerscentrum. The prize is intended for an important and interesting contribution to fluid mechanics. It is great pleasure to announce that the recipient of the 2023 Leen van Wijngaarden Prize is: Dr. ir. Sander Huisman. The Prize will be presented at the Burgers Symposium on Thursday May 30th, 2024. Sander Huisman currently is an associate professor in the Physics of Fluids group at the University of Twente. He obtained his Master’s Degree in 2009 and his PhD degree in 2014, both Cum Laude, under supervision of profs Chao Sun and Detlef Lohse. With his PhD thesis “Taylor-Couette Turbulence” he obtained the Hoogendoorn KIVI Award 2015 for the best fluid mechanics thesis. He is interested in the mass, momentum, heat, and energy transfer in turbulent flows with or without inclusions (bubbles, particles, and drops) in a variety of geometries: Rayleigh–Bénard, Taylor–Couette, von Kármán, channel, pipe flows, jet flow, shear flow, and homogeneous isotropic turbulence. He is now focusing on turbulent flow with bubbles, particles, and droplets, but also with phase transitions (nucleation, cavitation, boiling, melting, dissolution, freezing, evaporation). He also has a keen interest in applying measurements techniques, like laser Doppler anemometry, particle tracking velocimetry, and high-speed particle image velocimetry, to the aforementioned geometries, and develop new algorithms and methods to analyze flows.
Snowy success: two days of snow, science and fun!
PoF contributed two talks to the symposium Snow & Ice by the Applied Physics programme. Alvaro Marin talked about Skiing and Skating, and Sander Huisman talked about Ice, water, and melting.
Article in PRF: Autothermotaxis of volatile drops
When a drop of a volatile liquid is deposited on a uniformly heated wettable, thermally conducting substrate, one expects to see it spread into a thin film and evaporate. Contrary to this intuition, due to thermal Marangoni contraction, the deposited drop contracts into a spherical-cap-shaped puddle, with a finite apparent contact angle. Strikingly, this contracted droplet, above a threshold temperature, well below the boiling point of the liquid, starts to spontaneously move on the substrate in an apparently erratic way. We describe and quantify this self-propulsion of the volatile drop. It arises due to spontaneous symmetry breaking of thermal Marangoni convection, which is induced by the nonuniform evaporation of the droplet. Using infrared imaging, we reveal the characteristic interfacial flow patterns associated with Marangoni convection in the evaporating drop. A scaling relation describes the correlation between the moving velocity of the drop and the apparent contact angle, both of which increase with the substrate temperature.
KIVI Hoogendoorn Fluid Mechanics Award 2023 - for Dr. Vatsal Sanjay
He defended his PhD thesis (with Cum Laude distinction) on 15th July 2022 at the University of Twente, with promotor prof. Detlef Lohse. The thesis is entitled: “Viscous Free-Surface Flows”. The Award Ceremony will take place at the upcoming Burgers Symposium on 29 – 30 May 2024 in Lunteren, where the recipient will also give a presentation on his thesis work.
Panta Rhei: Een wereld van verschil met fundamentele vloeistofdynamica
Naast droge voeten hebben we dankzij de vloeistofdynamica onder andere vliegtuigen, efficiënte koeling in laptops, steeds krachtigere computerchips, nauwkeurige(re) klimaatmodellen en optimale windturbineparken. Nederland loopt internationaal voorop in dit fundamentele vakgebied met vele toepassingsgebieden.
ERC Consolidator Grant WINDFLOW voor Richard Stevens
De Europese Onderzoeksraad (ERC) heeft de aanvraag van een ERC Consolidator Grant goedgekeurd van drie wetenschappers van de Universiteit Twente. De beurs ondersteunt uitmuntende wetenschappers in de fase van hun loopbaan waarin ze nog steeds bezig kunnen zijn met het vestigen van hun eigen onafhankelijke onderzoeksteams om hun meest veelbelovende wetenschappelijke ideeën uit te werken. De beurzen gaan naar Johannes Schmidt-Hieber (EWI), Massimo Sartori (CTW) en Richard Stevens (TNW). In Europa zijn in totaal 308 Consolidator Grants toegekend met een totale waarde van 627 miljoen euro.
Wolfram Innovator Award - Sander Huisman
Wolfram technologies have long been a major force in many areas of industry and research. Leaders in many top organizations and institutions have played a major role in using computational intelligence and pushing the boundaries of how the Wolfram technology stack is leveraged for innovation across fields and disciplines. We recognize these deserving recipients with the Wolfram Innovator Award, which is awarded at the Wolfram Technology Conferences around the world.
‘Tears of wine’ influence bubble dynamics
How hydrogen bubbles form and behave on electrodes seems to depend on the anions in your electrolyte, researchers explain from Leiden and Twente in Nature Chemistry.
Flow for future - JMBC report

Fluid dynamics good for 19,000 jobs

More than 19,000 people work on flows in Dutch industry. The export of products and services in the field of fluid dynamics provides great added value for the economy and society. This is evident from the report 'Everything flows in the Netherlands' that was presented to Members of Parliament today. Fluid dynamics is the science of moving fluids, gases and particles and involves predicting, controlling and measuring flows at any speed and on any scale: from the smallest blood vessels in our bodies to hurricanes in the atmosphere. It is a vital, but generally somewhat unknown technology. It appears that more than 19,000 people work on fluid dynamics in Dutch industry and that fluid dynamics contributes 11.5 billion euros to the Dutch economy every year. Fluid dynamics is therefore of crucial importance for solving future societal challenges. In the report 'Everything flows in the Netherlands', which was commissioned by the J.M. Burgerscentrum, the national research school for fluid mechanics, the gross added value is calculated at 130,000 euros per employee. More than 75% of the fluid mechanics industry exports its products and services. The report was presented today to spokespersons for science and innovation in the House of Representatives. The report comes at an important time. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy is working on determining the most important key technologies for the future of the Netherlands. And the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is also working on a futures study at the initiative of Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf. “Fluid mechanics sometimes fall through the cracks: at OCW people see it more as a technology, at Economic Affairs it is seen as a scientific discipline. Fluid dynamics is therefore structurally underfunded in the Netherlands, while we are demonstrably among the top on a European scale,” says Professor Detlef Lohse (University of Twente), who recently received his third Advanced Grant from the European Research Council ERC. Professor Ruud Henkes, director of the Burgerscentrum: “Internationally, the Netherlands has been regarded as a world leader in fluid dynamics for more than a century. It seems as if other countries appreciate the important Dutch contributions more than the Netherlands itself.” With the report 'Everything flows in the Netherlands', the Burgerscentrum wants to highlight not only the quality but also the importance of fluid dynamics. The report contains appealing examples of results in the areas of climate, energy transition, health, high-tech, environment, agriculture and food. “It is precisely the breadth in the applications of fluid mechanics that seems to be our bottleneck,” says Henkes, “the field really transcends top sectors and missions.” Download the report here in Dutch and in English.
Interview Detlef Lohse - Het is een voorrecht een onderzoeksvoorstel te mogen schrijven