Mini Symposia
Asympotics meets Numerics in non-Newtonian flows
(co-organised by Gaetano D’Avino & Luca Biancofiore)
Non-Newtonian and complex fluids exhibit a wide range of instabilities and bifurcation scenarios driven by nonlinear rheology and elastic effects. This minisymposium focuses on recent advances in asymptotic and analytical techniques—such as high-Weissenberg-number limits, perturbation methods, and reduced-order modelling—as well as state-of-the-art numerical approaches tailored to viscoelastic and complex-fluid flows.
The session aims to bring together researchers developing complementary analytical and computational perspectives, fostering interaction between communities that often advance in parallel despite addressing closely related physical challenges.
From Rigid Bodies to Elastic Sheets: Bifurcations in Fluid–Structure Interaction
(co-organised by Yuri Feldman & Oz Oshri)
Recently there is increasing interest in fluid-structure instabilities that emerge not only from the interaction of rigid bodies with a fluid medium but also from slender elastic objects that can undergo large deformations within the flow. Examples involve flexible valves and flapping structures, elastic filaments interacting with vortical flows, and thin sheets or membranes that wrinkle, flutter, or snap under hydrodynamicloading.
The session will focus on recent advances in numerical methods, such as the immersed boundary method and finite element methods suitable for FSI, and recent advances in theoretical techniques to capture dynamic instabilities, as well as experimental findings on instabilities of slender structures in flow, including emerging wakes, induced vortex vibrations, and related flow-structure oscillations.
The motivation for this session is that research communities working on thin sheets and those studying FSI of rigid bodies, particularly groups developing advanced numerical schemes, often make progress in parallel, with limited interaction. However, the underlying physical and computational challenges share many common features.
Metastability and phase change
(co-organised by Mirko Gallo and Eugene Benilov)
The motivation for this minisymposium is to examine recent theoretical, numerical, and experimental advances in areas related to phase change in fluid dynamics – including, but not limited to, interfacial dynamics, metastability, multiphase flow, and the interplay between molecular dynamics simulations and kinetic models.
Emerging patterns in biological flows
(co-organised by Rajat Mittal and Francesco Viola)
This mini symposium aims to explore new insights into the complex flow phenomena that arise in living systems across a wide range of scales. From cellular transport and microbial locomotion to organismal physiology and ecosystem processes, biological flows often exhibit rich spatial and temporal patterns driven by nonlinear interactions, feedback mechanisms, and environmental constraints. The session will bring together researchers working in experiments, theory, and computation to highlight recent advances, identify unifying principles, and discuss open challenges in understanding how these patterns emerge and evolve in biological contexts. The goal is to stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations and improve our understanding of fluid-mediated biological processes.