How does the shape of ice depend on the lateral and vertical confinement in a convective cell? In which conditions can we get the maximal amount of ice? How many possible equilibrium states can we observe for this system?  We have tried to rationalize these questions by means of simulations and experiments. Read about it in  Equilibrium states of the ice-water front in a differentially heated rectangular cell, Ziqi Wang, Enrico Calzavarini and Chao Sun [ https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.13253 ]  soon also on Europhys Lett.

Read about our recent work on planktonic population dynamics around an obstacle in open flow. It’s Alice Jaccod PhD work “Predator-prey plankton dynamics in turbulent wakes behind islands”, in collaboration with S. Chibbaro and S. Berti . Now published in Phys. Rev. Fluids [https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.6.103802] and also available on Arxiv  [ https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.05647 ].

From our new preprint “Ice front shaping by upward convective current”  with Ziqi Wang, Linfeng Jiang, Yihong Du, Chao Sun, Enrico Calzavarini [ https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.12078 ] and [ Phys. Rev. Fluids S6, L091501 (2021) ]

In the media: on Phys.org  “Breaking the ice on melting and freezing”  (nov. 2020)

Our article : “How the growth of ice depends on the fluid dynamics underneath” Ziqi Wang, Enrico Calzavarini, Chao Sun, and Federico Toschi, PNAS March 9, 2021 118 (10) e2012870118.

Wenwei Phd defence with a committee across three continents

We have just wrapped up into a preprint, available on Arxiv http://arxiv.org/abs/2012.05571, our collaborative study on the dynamics motion of tiny non-spherical non-homogeneous particles in a turbulent flow. In the best tradition of modern science, we try to combine experiments, numerical simulations and some calculus prediction.
A short illustrative movie of the experiment is available here [Linfeng’s movie]