Fiber Transport and Clogging in Structured Media – TransClog

The TransClog projet aims at investigating the migration and clogging of flexible fibers in structured media.
The motion of pulp fibers in the papermaking process, the migration of parasites in mucus, and the dispersal of bacterial biofilm filaments in biological environments, happen in complex media that are structured by obstacles whose size is comparable to the size of the moving particles. At this micrometric scale, the hydrodynamic and elastic couplings with obstacles can lead to the stoppage of the particles. Once blocked, a biofilm filament can grow rapidly and clog a medical stent or a capillary, thus contaminating the medium.
Understanding how small elastic structures navigate in a flow embedded with obstacles is essential to study the physics of biological and industrial systems, but also to deal with major sanitary issues, such as the prevention and treatment of infections.
We will combine cutting-edge numerical simulations with experiments to achieve two objectives:
1) Predict the clogging probability and migration modes of flexible fibers in porous media,
2) Quantify the effect of geometry, mechanical properties and physico-chemical interactions of artificial and natural gels on their fiber trapping efficiency.