Distinguished Visiting Fellowship award - Prof Alexander Nikolaevich Osiptsov

The main achievements of Professor Alexander Nikolaevich Osiptsov’s visit to our university were that it enabled Professor Sergei Sazhin to discuss research ideas with Professor Osiptsov and to obtain a clearer understanding of research practice at his home university, Moscow State University.

It also allowed Professor Sazhin to identify possible directions for future collaboration, taking into account the complementary nature of our expertise – Professor Osiptsov’s expertise is mainly focused on the mathematical modelling of multiphase flows, while Professor Sazhin and colleagues predominantly work with applied models focused on the processes in internal combustion engines.

These discussions eventually led to the preparation of draft versions of an EPSRC bid and a joint paper. Discussion between Professor Osiptsov, Professor Sazhin, Professor J Healy and Dr Boronin eventually led to the preparation of a new paper entitled ‘Non‐modal stability of round viscous jets’ to be submitted to J Fluid Mechanics.

Professor Sazhin's work as well as the work of Dr Boronin and Professor J Healy on this paper was supported by EPSRC (grants EP/F069855/1 and EP/G000034/1).

From a wider perspective, this visit contributed to the development of a new field of research (new method for modelling multiphase flows) at the interface of engineering and fluid mechanics, which is currently very under‐developed in the UK. It contributed to the acquisition of new methods of modelling engineering processes based on combined analytical/asymptotic and numerical approaches. These methods are currently almost unknown in the UK engineering community. This contribution to a new field is exactly as anticipated.

From the University of Brighton's aspect, colleagues demonstrated to Professor Osiptsov possible applications of his method to modelling the processes in internal combustion engines, as originally planned.

Professor Sergei Sazhin was able to familiarise himself with the mathematical foundation of the full Lagrangian method during this visit, something that would have been much more difficult to achieve based on reading appropriate papers alone.

The main dissemination of the results of this project is scheduled via the publication of the paper in ‘European J Mechanics B: Fluids’. In the future dissemination could take place through presentations at conferences. If the aforementioned EPSRC bid is successful, then regular collaboration between Professor Osiptsov and the group at Brighton will continue. If the application is not successful then they will investigate other possible collaborative programmes to which they can apply, both in the UK and Russia.