The Lake Vyrnwy Spring Rheology Meeting 2019

The Institute's 2019 meeting was organised by Karl Hawkins and Dan Curtis from Swansea University. The programme is available.

The images above are thanks to Jeff Giacomin (Queen's University), and the following report was written by Laura O’Dea (PhD student, Swansea University).

Lake Vyrnwy Hotel once again provided the setting for the INNFM Spring Meeting on Rheology which took place from 15th – 17th April 2019. As usual, the meeting was very well attended with friends and colleagues from around the world gathering to share and discuss the latest ideas and findings in our field.

The conference programme was divided into several sessions, each with a particular focus. The first session, commencing on Monday afternoon focussed on Polymer Dynamics. This was followed by a session on numerical simulations of non-Newtonian flows which was poignantly dedicated to the memory of Prof. Mike Webster, who worked passionately in the field before his passing in the Summer of 2018. The significance of his research was highlighted by Peter Townsend and Cris Gallegos along with tales of his unique approach to presentations and stories of his enthusiastic and good-natured character; Peter & Cris left us in no doubt as to the scale of the loss to our community. The session concluded with technical presentations relating to Mike’s work.

Tuesday saw sessions on General & Computational Rheology, Modelling, and Yield stress fluids. Presentations covered topics ranging from the modelling of food breakdown and flows during gastric digestion to printing with pulsed lasers. The diversity of these talks was characteristic of the broad scope of the research presented at the meeting. Tuesday’s sessions closed with the BSR AGM, at which Tim Phillips gave the BSR Presidential Address before Andrew Howe was inaugurated as BSR president. Robert Poole was awarded the BSR Annual Award and delivered an exceptional presentation on simulation of flow instabilities in cross slot geometries.

That evening, the prize for the best student poster (jointly sponsored by TA Instruments and the BSR) was awarded to Rebecca Hudson of the Complex Fluids Research Group, Swansea University. The post-banquet address was delivered by Jeff Giacomin, and included delightfully candid photos of key INNFM members and the sharing of the letter Jeff received from the INNFM core members declining his kind offer of Herstmonceux castle as a venue for the conference (a letter which subsequently moved Jeff to treat us to an entirely unexpected, and never to be forgotten, rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “I’ve looked at love from both sides now”).

The meeting closed before lunch on Wednesday after sessions on Rheometry and General & Applied Rheology.