Guest Editors:
- Roland Keunings (ICTEAM, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
- Francisco Chinesta (PIMM Laboratory, Arts et Métiers Institute of Technology, HESAM Université, Paris, France)
From the pioneering works in the early 80s focusing on the numerical solution of viscoelastic models in moderately complex geometries, a large variety of models, numerical techniques and applicative frameworks emerged over the past three decades. The macroscopic scale where many phenomenological models were established has been complemented by finer descriptions at different scales, ranging from atomistic (ab-initio, molecular dynamics) to coarser descriptions based on DPD or kinetic theory. The fluid behaviour became ever more complex as well as the geometries in which the flow model is defined, and nowadays most studies consider 3D complex geometries. The mathematical statement of models remains a tricky issue as well as the stability and convergence of the numerical discretization techniques employed. Despite the impressive advances in physical modeling, numerical techniques, mathematical analysis and computational resources, many problems involving complex fluids in complex flows remain challenging.
This thematic issue revisits some of such scenarios and presents recent advances in computational rheology.