The division‚ Strömungslehre und Aerodynamik (SLA) at TUD is in the faculty of Mechanical Engineering and comprises approximately 24 scientific staff, about half of which are post-doctoral employees. The division has a strong research program in the field of interfacial phenomena, such as sprays, coatings, droplet evaporation, etc. This includes both experimental and numerical investigations of these processes and the associated measuring techniques to characterise droplet behaviour. In particular the acoustics levitation of droplets and the measurement of their evaporation throughout the first and second drying phases as been developed and refined over the last 6 years.
The division is headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. C. Tropea, who also co-ordinates the national strategic grant program on Atomisation and Sprays, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and involves approximately 20 leading institutes in Germany. Prof. Tropea serves as an officer on the board of ILASS-Europe. He has over 100 publications, many of which are in the field of sprays and droplet evaporation.
The SLA division co-operates actively with industrial partners, with about 50% of their 1MEuro external research budget coming from direct industrial sponsoring. Facilities available at SLA in Darmstadt include the acoustic levitation facility with all related measuring techniques, high-speed CCD cameras, phase-Doppler particle sizing and facilities for characterising material properties of fluids and suspensions.

Role in the project
Experiments of drying particles in an acoustic levitator. Formulation of a 1D drying model (WP 4) suitable for implementation in CFD codes (WP 3). Member of the Management Team (WP 9 and 10)

Facilities/Main Fields of Research
Wind Tunnel
Development and fabrication of internal wind tunnel balances
Fundamentals of semi-span testing in wind tunnels
Wake survey measurements in wind tunnels
In-flight measurement of boundary layer transition on wings
Laser Measuring Techniques
Development of a back-scatter instrument for particle sizing
Optical measuring techniques for characterising non-spherical particles
Development of the Global Phase Doppler technique
Computation Fluid Mechanics
Combining finite element and finite volume methods for new flow solvers
Numerical simulation of particle laden flows
Transition models used on high-lift wing configurations
Transition modelling in Reynolds stress methods
Interfacial Phenomena
Impact of droplets on liquid films
Impact of droplets on solid surfaces
Influence of nozzle flow conditions on atomisation
Grain drying in spray towers

EDECAD-project team
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Cam Tropea (permanent staff at TUD): Head of the SLA division and responsible for the project. His inputs are in the area of model formulation and measuring techniques.
Dr. Ilia Roisman (permanent staff at TUD): Dr. Roisman will make contributions to the agglomeration model (WP3) and the drying models (WP4).
Dipl.-Ing. Oliver Kastner (contract staff): Dipl.-Ing. O. Kastner will be involved in carrying out the laboratory experiments in WP4.
Dipl.-Ing. Jens Ritzert (contract staff): Dipl.-Ing. J. Ritzert will be involved in carrying out laboratory experiments in WP4.