UMIST is one of a small number of UK Universities that are in the most highly ranked group according to the research assessment criteria of the UK Government. The Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering has one of the top research rankings of the Departments in UMIST. The Atomisation and Sprays Research Group (ASRG) is the only group of its kind in the UK Universities, in that it addresses all areas of spray use, including combustion, metal spraying, fire suppression, medical sprays, agricultural spraying and spray drying. Also computational and experimental aspects are combined in most investigations, and there is particular emphasis on the understanding of fundamentals of spray flows, via experimentation, and the development and improvement of computational fluid dynamics models based upon such experiments. Professor Andrew Yule, who is leader of the ASRG, has 25 years experience in the field of spray research and originally qualified in the field of fluid mechanics. He has 130 publications in spray related topics and is involved in measurements in sprays, atomiser development, and the application and validation of CFD models. He was a founder of the Institute of Liquid Atomisations and Spray Systems-Europe, and has been a consultant in spray-related matters for many companies including Glaxo-Wellcome, BP, Unilever and Rolls Royce. Dr Paul Watkins leads the CFD related research in the ASRG and his research over 20 years, in many spray-related fields but particularly concerned with engines, has led to the development of the UMIST Spray-3D CFD code. This is a very flexible CFD code with ease of user access to tailor the code for different applications. The code will be ideally suited to the incorporation and testing of the collision and agglomeration sub-models which are a principal feature of Workpackages 2 and 3 of the EDECAD project.

Role in the project
UMIST will be involved within WP2, WP3 and WP8 in the development and testing of the sub-models, and will lead WP2 and WP3. Experimentally, UMIST will contribute measurements of collision rates and coalescence/small drop formation by collision, in test sprays using water, and example "real" fluids (WP2). These experiments will use a specially modified dual-spray-impact apparatus. UMIST (the ASRG) has a range of measurement instrumentation suited to the experimental work, in particular two PDA systems and a high speed, high magnification frame-grabbing system with image analysis software.

EDECAD-project team
Professor Andrew J Yule: UMIST contact and responsibility holder in project, specifically overseeing collision sub-model formulation and supervising the experimental work in WP2. Also interacting with agglomeration model development (WP3) and final validation of codes and sub-models (WP8).
Dr A Paul Watkins is responsible for overseeing the work by Research Assistants on the implementation of the new sub-models within the Spray-3D code, and also for interacting with Halle, NIZO, and other partners, in the implementation of the sub-models within their respective CFD codes.
Dr Geraldo Nhumaio (Research Associate) is experienced mainly in CFD, and is involved full-time in CFD model development in WP2 and WP3. His PhD research was on the use of electrostatic techniques in Gasolene Direct Injection, studied using specially developed CFD submodels.
Mr Yusuf Al-Suleimani (Research Assistant) is an experimental specialist in sprays and two-phase flow. He is responsible for the droplet collision experiments in WP2.
Mr Dennis Cooper (Experimental Officer) has 20 years experience in advanced instrumentation techniques for measurements in single and two-phase flows.