A $3 million grant from the Department of Energy to the University of Colorado will allow researchers there to simulate the flow and movement of individual solid particles such as lunar dust or powdered contents of a medication.
Doing so could hold great research value for scientists in a variety of fields, according to a news release.
The project, to advance supercomputing to improve particle flow models with broad implications for the pharmaceutical, aerospace and energy sectors, will be led by Christine Hrenya, a professor of CU's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Thomas Hauser, director of Research Computing.
Simulations of single solid particles typically have been limited by their intensive computing requirements, with current models capable of calculating a mass of particles approximately equivalent to what is contained in a cup of sand. CU researchers hope they can eventually raise that by a factor of 100, according to a news release.
The CU researchers believe improved particle simulations could someday have applications for new sustainable energy technologies.