Description:
Princeton Docket # 15-3079-1
Researchers at Princeton University, Department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, have developed a method to damp the oscillations from sloshing during liquid transport.
Sloshing dynamics lead to challenging technical constraints in various applications. For transport of oil and liquefied gas, sloshing can generate considerable pressure forces on the walls of the containers used, which could cause a rupture or disrupt the motion of the vehicle. Currently, there are multiple apparati on the market designed to reduce sloshing during liquid transport.
This innovation describes a method to reduce sloshing in any container without the need of additional equipment. It is low-cost, versatile and easy to implement, and has applications in the safe transport of hazardous liquids such as oil and liquefied gas and propellants in rocket engines.
Applications
• Liquid transport and shipping
1. Oil and liquid natural gas
2. Chemicals
3. Liquid propellants
Advantages
• Simple
• Versatile
• Easy to implement
The Faculty Inventor
Howard A. Stone, Donald R. Dixon and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Chair
Howard Stone's research interests are in fluid dynamics, especially as they arise in research and applications in transport phenomena at the interface of engineering, chemistry, physics, biology and applied mathematics. His research group has developed original research directions in the area of complex fluids and microfluidics including studies and applications involving bubbles and droplets, red blood cells, bacteria, chemical kinetics, etc. Many of the studies involve experiments, theory and numerical simulations. For example, his research group made fundamental contributions to droplet microfluidics and to microfluidic flows involving narrow regions where reaction-diffusion processes are localized. In addition, his group has made various contributions to flow processes involving foams. Also, in biologically inspired areas, his research group identified conditions where fluid flow causes surface-attached biofilms to form three-dimensional filaments inside the flow.
Professor Stone is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He joined the faculty at Princeton University in 2009. In 2008, Stone was the winner of the inaugural Batchelor Prize sponsored by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics for the breadth and depth of his research over a 10-year period (1998-2007) and for his widely acknowledged leadership in fluid mechanics.
Emilie Dressaire, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
Emilie Dressaire received her undergraduate degree in Physics and Chemical Engineering from ESPCI (France) and her masters degree in Biophysics from the University of Paris. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University in 2009. During her graduate studies, she studied the shaping fluid-fluid interfaces through capillary, elastic, and gravitational effects. After spending one year as a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University (Canada), she joined the Trinity College faculty as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. She was a visiting researcher at Princeton University in 2013-2014. In the fall of 2014, she became an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. Her research endeavors to discern the fundamental mechanisms that govern particle-laden flows in confined fluidic environments and flow-microstructure interactions.
Alban Sauret, Ph.D.
Alban Sauret is currently a research scientist at CNRS in France. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Physics from ENS Lyon (France). He then completed his PhD in mechanical engineering in Aix-Marseille University (France). He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University with Prof. H. A. Stone in 2013-2014. He is currently working in the "Surfaces, Glass and Interfaces" laboratory that is a joint CNRS/Saint-Gobain research center near Paris (France) and is a visiting academic at NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering in the ''Particles, Interfaces and Fluids" laboratory. He is also a consultant for Saint-Gobain for questions related to industrial processes that involve granular materials, suspensions and fluids.
François Boulogne, Ph.D.
François Boulogne received his undergraduate and master's degrees in Physics from Université Paris-Saclay (France). He graduated in 2013 with a Ph.D. in Physics in Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris
(France). In 2013, he joined the Complex Fluid group of Prof. Howard Stone at Princeton University in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. François obtained in June 2014 an individual Marie Curie Fellowship to pursue his research for two years in Princeton and then one year in the group of Prof. Laurent Limat at Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes in Université Paris-Diderot. His research is located at the interface between hydrodynamics with flow of complex fluids such as foams or polymer solutions, physical-chemistry of colloidal suspensions as well as continuum mechanics of consolidating materials.
Intellectual Property & Development status
Patent protection is pending.
Princeton is currently seeking commercial partners for the further development and commercialization of this opportunity.
Contact:
Michael R. Tyerech
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • (609) 258-6762• tyerech@princeton.edu
Xin (Shane) Peng
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • (609) 258-5579• xinp@princeton.edu