Scientific program 2012-2019

The INTERACTIFS project, carried out by the University of Poitiers in partnership with ISAE-ENSMA and CNRS, is a multidisciplinary research program combining mechanics, materials and energy.

It is based on the Pprime Institute and positions it as a reference center on the theme of fluid couplings – materials at interfaces.

The project is built around Pprime’s fields of expertise in surface physics and mechanics, electro-fluido-dynamics, heat and mass transfers in fluid media and solid materials. The development of research actions will be promoted through a network of international collaborations with reference centers in each of the key disciplines of the project.

Project objective: control of Fluid and Solid interfaces

Multiphysics approaches are very present in engineering sciences, with particular attention being paid here to the interactions between mechanical, thermal, electrostatic and fluidic phenomena. These couplings manifest themselves at the solid and fluid interfaces.

Few works are in practice devoted to fluid – solid couplings at interfaces, because they require the continuous collaboration of various scientific communities – physics vs mechanics; materials vs fluids – looking at specific phenomenological scales.

The project tackles this problematic using a multi-scale approach from the analysis of global balance sheets, via the interphase characterized by strong gradients – of physical quantities and induced properties of the mediums – up to the finest scales of physical mechanisms. elementary. Thus, mastering interfaces, from the design and development of surfaces to the analysis of their properties in terms of heat, mass and charge transfers is a key element in order to drive and control the dynamics of these physical phenomena.

Towards three innovative research fields

The originality of the project is based on the combination of three areas of competence of the Pprime Institute – surface physics and mechanics, heat and mass transfers, electrostatic phenomena – opening up new fields of research (see figure opposite).

The scientific challenges concern elasticity / plasticity, environmental effects on phase transitions and damage, the influence of the surface state on transfers, the evolution of this surface under the effect of flow, chemical reactions at the interface, the electric double layer, electrification of flow …

This work requires both the development of specific tools for developing and transforming the first atomic layers of surfaces, and modeling and simulation work using local and national computing resources.