Wim-Paul Breugem is specialized in fluid mechanics. He does fundamental research on turbulence, multiphase flows, flows in porous media and rheology using computational fluid dynamics, with applications in process, energy, environmental and maritime engineering and often in close collaboration with industrial partners.

More specifically, Breugem’s expertise covers: wall-bounded turbulent flows, turbulent drag reduction, atmospheric flows, suspension flows, bubbly flows, break-up of liquid jets, droplet coalescence, continuum modelling for porous-media and multiphase flows, slender-jet modelling, linear hydrodynamic stability analysis, Direct Numerical Simulation, Immersed Boundary Methods for particle-laden flows, Level-Set and Volume-of-Fluid methods for flows laden with deformable bubbles or drops, high-performance computing.

Applications Breugem has been working on, relate to: prilling for production of fertilizer pellets, rheology of dense suspensions used for 3D (extrusion-based) printing, sedimentation and fluidization processes, turbulent sediment transport through pipelines related to dredging applications, turbulent bed erosion near hydraulic structures or in dredging applications, turbulent flows over porous/permeable walls, shark-skin riblet textures or compliant (visco-elastic) coatings in maritime applications, ship air lubriction, by-pass pigging in pipelines, micro-fluidic flows driven by artificial cilia, and interannual climate variability in the tropical Atlantic region.

Biography

Wim-Paul Breugem (1976) is Associate Professor within the Process & Energy department at TU Delft since 2014. His research is centered around the theme "Computational Fluids Engineering" with a focus on development and use of computational models and methods for studying fluid flows related to engineering applications. He has an MSc in Applied Physics from TU Delft (1994-2000). He did his PhD research on the influence of wall permeability on laminar and turbulent flows at the same university within the Laboratory for Aero & Hydrodynamics at Mechanical Engineering. In January 2005, he obtained his PhD cum laude. From 2005 till 2007 he worked as a postdoc at KNMI (the Dutch weather and climate institute) on coupled ocean/atmosphere patterns of interannual climate variability in the tropical Atlantic region. In 2008 he started as an Assistant Professor on turbulence and multiphase flows within the Process & Energy department at TU Delft, first in the Fluid Mechanics group and since 2016 in the Multiphase Systems group. He got a tenured position in 2013 and obtained the "ius promovendi" in 2018. Breugem is currently supervising 4 PhD students. Among other teaching activities, he has been teaching the MSc course 'Turbulence' from 2010-2015 and is teaching the MSc course 'Introduction to Multiphase Flows' since 2016.

Supervision of PhD students

• Current PhD students: Y.E. Kamis, W. Peerbooms, M.T. Shajahan, F.T. Charruault
• Past PhD students: Dr. M.H.W. Hendrix, Dr. H.O.G. Benschop, Dr. P. Simoes Costa, Dr. M. Kwakkel
• Second promotor of the following PhD students at TU Delft: Dr. A. Dash, Dr. W.J. Hogendoorn, Dr. S.K. Pacha Sanjeevi.
• Member of several other PhD committees in Delft, Eindhoven (5x), France (École Centrale Paris, 2x University of Toulouse, University of Bordeaux) and Sweden (KTH).

Membership of scientific societies

• Member of the scientific committee of the IUTAM conference 'From Stokesian suspension dynamics to particulate flows in turbulence' in Toulouse in 2022. 
• Member of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Numerical Methods in Multiphase Flows (ICNMMF-4) in Venice in 2022.
• Member of the scientific committee of the EUROMECH Colloquium 596 on numerical simulation of dispersed multiphase flows in Venice in 2018.
• Member of the scientific committee of the bi-annual Direct and Large-Eddy Simulation conference (since 2017).
• Member of programme committee of the NWO Physics@Veldhoven conference in 2017. 
• Member of local organizing committee of the European Turbulence Conference (ETC) in Delft in 2015.
• Co-organizer of the EUROMECH Colloquium 549 on Immersed Boundary Methods in Leiden in 2013.
• Co-organizer of a colloquium on Immersed Boundary Methods at the ASME/FED Summer Meeting in 2010 (Montreal) and 2012 (Puerto Rico).
• Co-organizer of the KNAW Academy Colloquium on Immersed Boundary Methods in Amsterdam in 2009.
• Member of the J.M. Burgerscentrum, the Dutch research school for fluid mechanics. Involved in PhD courses on turbulence and computational multiphase flow (every two years) and dispersed multiphase flow (2017).
• Member of Pro2Tech, the Process & Product Technology community at TU Delft. Coordinator of the Solids & Fluid Mechanics research cluster.
• Member of TU Delft Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (DCSE).

Recent invited lectures

• 2023, University of Stuttgart (Dr. Lamanna) 
• 2021, International Journal of Multiphase Flow, online spotlight seminar
• 2019, University of Twente (Prof. Snoeijer)
• 2018, TU Wien (Prof. Soldati)

Academic visits

• 2013 Visiting researcher at KTH (Stockholm, Sweden), 2 months
• 2006 Visiting researcher at Texas A&M University (US), 4 months
• 2002 CTR (Center for Turbulence Research) summer program at Stanford University (US), 1 month

Main teaching activities

• 2023-present: 1st year BSc course "Thermodynamica" (6 ects) for mechanical and maritime engineering students, TUD (with Prof. R. Pecnik).
• 2016-present: MSc course "Introduction to Multiphase Flow" (5 ects) at Mechanical Engineering, TUD (responsible teacher).
• 2015-2020: Coordinator of the 3rd year BSc End Project (BEP) within the Process & Energy department, TUD.  
• 2010-2015: MSc course "Turbulence" (5 ects) at Mechanical Engineering, TUD, for which I obtained the ‘Best MSc Teacher’ award of the Process & Energy department from the Mechanical Engineering student society (Gezelschap Leeghwater) in 2010.
• Co-organizer and teacher of the Junior TU Delft program "Rocket Scientist in 5 Fridays" for 25 high-school students (during 3 years).
• Teacher of the "FLOW Summer School on  Numerical Methods for Multiphase Flows" at KTH (Stockholm), 3-7 Sep 2012 (responsible for a 1-day program on Immersed Boundary Methods, with lectures and Matlab exercises).
• Teacher at several PhD courses of the JM Burgerscentrum (Turbulence, Computational Multiphase Flow, Dispersed Multiphase Flow).

Other teaching-related activities:

• Member of the Board of Studies of the BSc Mechanical Engineering, TUD (since 2019).
• University Teaching Qualification since 2010.

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