Pneumatic Conveying of Powder

**Postdoctoral position in Pneumatic Conveying of Powder - 18 months fixed term contract**

SPIN CENTER

**JOB ENVIRONMENT**:

- Institut Mines-Télécom_ is the leading public group of engineering and management _Grandes Écoles_ in France.
Consisting of eight public graduate _Grandes Écoles_ and two subsidiary graduate schools, _Institut Mines-Télécom_
leads and develops a rich ecosystem of partner schools, economic, academic and institutional partners, key play
- ers in education, research and economic development.

Mines Saint-Étienne, a graduate school of the _Institut Mines-Télécom_, is responsible for education, research,
innovation, industrial transfer and scientific culture dissemination. With 2,500 students, 500 staff and a budget
of €50m, it has 3 campuses dedicated to the industry of the future, health and well-being, and digital sovereignty
and microelectronics. It is ranked in the top 15 graduate engineering schools in France and the top 500 universi
- ties worldwide.

The 2023-2027 strategy of Mines Saint-Etienne is in line with that of _Institut Mines Telecom_. It aims to:

- Support the ecological, digital and generational transitions and educate the people involved
- Support national and European sovereignty in microelectronics and digital technolog

To support this strategy, it is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher in the field of industrial processes engineering
and physical sciences.

**JOB DESCRIPTION**:
The _SPIN_ Chemical Engineering research center develops its research activities in the field of Chemical
Engineering applied to dispersed systems : grains, particles, drops, bubbles, porous mediaMost of its
staff belongs to the _CNRS_ joint research units _George Friedel Laboratory_ UMR 5307 and _Environment, _
- City and Society Laboratory_ UMR 5600. Currently, more than 80 employees and students are working
at the SPIN Centre in a stimulating interdisciplinary research environment. A great number of collabo
- rations are established with research groups worldwide as well as with SMEs or major industrial com
- panies.

The Granular Matter Handling and Processing research team is attempting to bridge macroscopic features such
as flowability, reaction extent,with the properties of individual particles (size, shape, chemical composition,
) and the suspending medium (flow regime, temperature, pressure, composition,). This approach is applied
to powders and grains in a gas as well as to concentrated pastes such as cement and concrete.

The position will take part in a collaborative research activities with ORANO our industrial partner who
is a recognized international leading operator in the field of nuclear materials. Orano delivers solutions
to address present and future global energy and health challenges. Its expertise and mastery of cut
- ting-edge technologies enable Orano to offer its customers high value-added products and services
throughout the entire fuel cycle.
Our two groups are joining our efforts to understand field observations in a pneumatic transport line.

Granular material is a specific state of the matter failing to be described by usual behavior laws
usually applied to fluids or solids. However in a vast majority of examples manufactured equipment
require the handling and processing of particulate material. Such a state of matter is formed by a
collection of a large number of individual solid particles. Individually these particles are successfully
described with conventional physical laws. However a complexity emerges from the large number
of particles involved which produces unexpected behaviour visible in nature as well as on manufac
- turing lines.

Among the various powders and grains processing operations used in the industry, pneumatic con
- veying is a very common technical option for the continuous conveying over distances ranging from
1cm to 100m. Its relatively low cost and flexibility explains its use, despite the complex interaction
between the imposed gas flow dragging along the granular phase. A large variety of transport re
- gimes are indeed accessible depending on the imposed gas flow rate, the granular material proper
- ties and its transport rate.
In particular the interactions between the wall material forming the conveying line and its geometry
or inclination is poorly studied and may explain some of the observed performance fluctuations.
Moreover, a better understanding of the wall-particle interaction on the granular conveying physics
may open opportunities for future developments in the field of powder technologies.
- The applicant will undertake series of experimental and theoretical research actions in order to explore

field observations reported by our partner. A scientific literature survey will be required in order to pro
- vide an up-to-date overview of the topic, suggesting state-of-the-art observation methods. A review of
interfacial mechanisms studied and reported by the scientific community in various granular flow ex
-