Description Understanding the thermocapillary motion of droplets is of great relevance for many engineering applications. Since the pioneering works carried out back in the 1950s by different research groups worldwide, many engineers and scientists have started investigating this problem using different techniques: experimental, theoretical, and numerical approaches. Although many aspects related to the thermocapillary motion of droplets are clear nowadays, the advancement of computational techniques for the simulation of flows with moving boundaries paved the way to the investigation of complex configurations which otherwise would require complicated, time consuming and extremely expensive experiments. In this project, the student will investigate numerically (CFD analysis) the migration of droplets moving under the effect of an imposed temperature gradient (thermocapillary migration). The work will be carried out using an in-house OpenFOAM solver developed by Dr Paolo Capobianchi. Key objectives

Performing two-dimensional simulations considering droplets of different size under the influence of temperature gradients.

Extending the problem to three-dimensional configurations and compare the results with previous experimental/numerical data.

Extending the investigation to flow conditions beyond the flow regimes and configurations considered by previous researchers.