Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | University of California San Diego
Microscale Flow Modeling
Saintillan Research Group
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Welcome to the Saintillan Research Group!

Our research centers on the study of fundamental fluid mechanics problems involving complex fluids and complex flows, typically on small scales. We use a combination of modeling, theory, and numerical simulations to study the dynamics and properties of flows involving a microstructure (such as particles, macromolecules, swimming micro-organisms, biopolymers) suspended in and interacting with a viscous fluid, as arise in many biophysical, environmental, and technological processes. We are particularly interested in fluid flow problems in which complexity arises from: multiphysics phenomena in which the interactions of various effects (mechanical, electric, chemical, or thermal) lead to complex dynamics; the effects of long-ranged hydrodynamic interactions on fluctuations and pattern formation; the coupling of a large number of degrees of freedom (such as particle configurations). Many of our current problems of interest are motivated by simple experiments, biological phenomena, or engineering applications, and their solution often involves applied mathematics, large-scale computation, and comparisons to experimental data. More details on our recent work can be found in our publications.


Group Photo Current members of the Saintillan Research Group (December 2024): David Saintillan, Tanumoy Dhar, Dalia Barragan, Nick Broussinos, Cuncheng Zhu, Yuchen Hou, Yuzhu Chen.

Recent News

July 2025: The paper "Electrohydrodynamic drift of a drop away from an insulating wall" by Sen, Firouznia, Koch, Saintillan and Vlahovska appeared in Physical Review Fluids. Click here to download the article. The paper was also featured on the cover of the April 2025 volume.

June 2025: Congratulations to Yuchen Hou for successfully defending his M.S. thesis entitled: "Reinforcement learning-based control of topological defects in 2D active nematics"!

April 2025: Congratulations to Tanumoy Dhar for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation entitled: "Theoretical and computational study of active-passive particle interactions"!

April 2025: The paper "Active nematics fluids on Riemannian two-manifolds" by Zhu, Saintillan and Chern appeared in Proceegings of the Royal Society A. Click here to download the article. The paper was also featured on the cover of the April 2025 volume.

Gallery of Images

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