Welcome

Welcome to the website of the Virtual International Research Institute of Two-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer or VIR2AL. You can find a short summary of our mission and objective below. A more detailed description of our objectives can be found on the Mission and Objectives page. You can also find more information on the members of the Virtual Institute at the Members of the Virtual Institute page. If you are interested in images and movies representative of some of the two-phase research performed by our Members, you can find these on the Images and Movies page.

Mission and Objectives

The mission of VIR2AL is to improve and foster international collaboration between world class two-phase flow and heat transfer laboratories around the world. The main objectives can be summarized as:

1. Sharing and preserving of experimental and numerical data sets:
   • Experimental data sets of two-phase flow characteristics such as flow transitions, pressure drop, etc
   • Experimental data sets of two-phase heat transfer characteristics such as heat transfer coefficients, critical heat flux, etc
   • Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Particle Shadow Velocimetry (PSV) flow field data sets
   • Numerical simulation data sets of two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristics
2. Development of smart flow pattern maps
3. Improving two-phase flow education
4. Organizing an annual research meeting and workshop for members
5. Student and staff exchange, including visitor programs

For a more elaborate description of the objectives please visit the Mission and Objectives page.

Members

The members of VIR2AL come from all over the world. A list of participating institutions:

• Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
• University of Ljubljana
• Kobe University
• Tel Aviv University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR)
• University of Campinas
• University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• University of Pisa
• University of São Paulo
• Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)
• University of Udine
• University of Maryland
• University of Manchester
• Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA-Lyon)
• State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)
• Brunel University London (TPHT)
• University of Padova
• Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
• Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
• Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT)

Information on the executive committee of the institute can be found at the Executive Committee page. More detailed information on the institute's members can be found at the Members of the Virtual Institute page.

Two-Phase Flow Group Meeting

The European Two-Phase Flow Group was established on October 4, 1963, at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, after the EAES Symposium on Two- Phase Flow, Steady State Burnout and Hydrodynamics Instability. Professor Becker, who at the time held the chair of Reactor Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology, was the founder. There were 53 ETPFG meetings up to 2023. Each year, the national delegate of the host country takes the chair. Until 1999 there was a limited number of seats for each country. Belgium 3 seats, Switzerland 3, Germany 9, Denmark 2, Spain 2, European JRC 3, France 9, Greece 1, Italy 9, Israel 1, Norway 2, The Netherlands 3, Portugal 2, Sweden 2, Finland 2, Slovenia 1, and UK 7. The main objectives of the meetings were always state of the art reports, synergism of academic and industrial circles and special care of the younger generation. In 1998 the Meeting, organized by University of Lubljiana in Portoroz, has been also the first European-Japanese Two-Phase Flow-Group Meeting. In 2022, a meeting open to Japan, US and Europe has been organized in Chamonix. ​

All subjects in the gas-liquid domain are usually discussed at the Group Meetings: boiling, flashing and condensation, bubbly flows, droplet flows, annular flows, horizontal and inclined flows, singularities and choked flows, instrumentation, computer codes, industrial systems (chemical engineering, environmental engineering), and nuclear reactors.

Visit the official website to get further information.

20th Multiphase Flow Conference and Short Course -Simulation, Experiment and Application-

November 11-15 2024, Dresden, Germany

The Virtual International Research Institute of Two-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer is partner of this annual workshop on multiphase flows. The goal of the workshop was to bring together experimental and numerical practitioners, and to foster discussion and exchange of knowledge. Experts from both areas are called upon to present their research and application results to a worldwide audience. Topics of interest include:

• Simulation technology for multiphase flows
  • Phase interaction models
  • Turbulence models
  • Solution algorithms
  • Multi-scale modelling techniques
• Application of simulation methods to multiphase flow problems
• Experimental investigations of multiphase and magnetohydrodynamic flows
• Measurement methods for multiphase and magneto-hydrodynamic flows

The workshop is divided into two parts: starting with two days of Short Course, two more days of Conference follow. The workshop language is English.

Visit the official website to get further information.

16th International Conference on Gas–Liquid and Gas–Liquid–Solid Reactor Engineering (GLS-16)

2-5 September 2024, Dresden, Germany

GLS-16 continues a sequence of bi-annual conferences with latest events in Brussels (GLS-13, 2017), Guilin (GLS-14, 2019) and Ottawa (GLS-15, 2022). It gathers specialists from academia and industry discuss recent advances in the field of multiphase reactors and processes. Thereby we explore the full width of multiphase processes and applications in chemical, biochemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgical and environmental engineering. Recent developments in the design and application of multiphase reactors in industry and research are as welcome as theoretical studies, new reactor designs, fundamental experimental and numerical analyses as well as development of tools for the simulation and measurement of multiphase processes at multiple scales. The conference theme of GLS-16 is “Multiscale Simulations and Experimental Studies for an Advanced Understanding of Multiphase Reactors”.

Visit the official website to get further information.

SWINTH-2024 - Specialist Workshop on Advanced Instrumentation and Measurement Techniques for Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics and Severe Accidents

17 – 20 June 2024, Dresden, Germany

SWINTH-2024 is meant to create an opportunity for scientists and technologists to discuss recent achievements and future needs in the development and application of advanced measurement instrumentation and techniques for thermal-hydraulics (TH) and severe accident (SA) research, and for accident management (AM) to provide data related to progression of an accident including long-term management of an accident.

This workshop follows up earlier Specialists Workshops (WSs) on Advanced Instrumentation and Measurement Techniques for Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (SWINTH), held in Livorno, Italy, in June 2016, organized by SILENCE Network, the follow-up SWINTH-2019 with broader scope than 2016 by including severe accidents, held in Livorno, Italy, in October 2019, jointly organized by SILENCE Network and WGAMA, and more recently the OECD/NEA Specialist WS SAMMI-2020 on Advanced Measurement Method and Instrumentation for enhancing Severe Accident Management in an NPP addressing Emergency, Stabilization and Long-term Recovery Phases, held online from Tokai, Japan, in December 2020. SWINTH-2024 combines the respective experiences and roles of OECD/NEA-CSNI/WGAMA and SILENCE Network in a joint organizational effort on a common goal.

Visit the official website to get further information.