Workshop on Friction and Adhesion in Wet and Dry Systems

Udated Jan 31, 2026

Welcome to the IFPRI workshop on friction and adhesion in wet and dry systems.  This workshop stems from an earlier IFPRI workshop on suspension and dispersion rheology (Edinburgh, 2018), which revealed an opportunity to understand better the role of particle contact in high volume fraction particle-liquid dispersions, particularly at high shear stress.  This topic is central to the understanding of dry granular flow; however, the “wet” and “dry” flow communities rarely talk to each other and share insight and understanding that is relevant to both systems.  We are organizing this workshop to help bridge this gap and begin to build a more unified understanding of particulate flow.  An important objective is to develop a roadmap for future research in this area and to generate research topics for IFPRI to support.

We are expecting approximately 50 participants split roughly 70-30 between academia and industry.  We will spend most of our time in small- and large-group discussions about the relevant industrial challenges, the current state of experimental, theoretical, and computational understanding, and the key open questions.  We've asked a small number of participants to present talks which are intended to seed these discussions.

Here is a link to the agenda.  The workshop starts at 8:30 AM on Monday, January 19 and ends 4:20 PM on Tuesday, January 20.  There is a happy hour on Sunday at 6 PM and a workshop banquet on Monday evening.

We will webcast the presentations, but not the discussion sessions.  I'll post the videoconference link here (we're using Google Meet) and email it to all registered participants.

Workshop materials (abstracts, presentations, discussion outputs) are posted below.  I will also email a link to a Google folder containing the same information.