Thermal convection and its applications in industries and nature

Speaker: Professor Innocent MUTABAZI

Date and time: Thursday, 26^th October 2023 at 16:30 HRs

Physical Venue: EAIFR’s conference hall. Top floor, EINSTEIN Block, former “KIST2” Building, UR-CST, Nyarugenge campus.

Innocent Mutabazi

Emeritus Professor of the University of Le Havre

 After a graduation from High School in Byimana (Rwanda) in 1973, Innocent Mutabazi obtained a scholarship to Russia where he attended the University of Moscow from 1974 to 1980 and obtained the Master of Science in Physics with Honors. He was hired as Assistant in Physics Department of the National University of Rwanda in Butare. From 1985 to 1989, he prepared a doctoral thesis in Physics of Liquids at the University of Paris 7. After a post-doctoral research in the department of Theoretical Physics of Atomic Energy Center, he moved to the Physics Department of the Ohio State University in Columbus (USA) for 18 months. 

In October 1991, he was hired as Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Le Havre in France and became a Professor of Physics in 1994 where he has been working since, until his recent retirement (01/09/2023). The research activities of Innocent Mutabazi are related to the Physical Hydrodynamics with a special focus on Instabilities, transition to spatio-temporal chaos, weak turbulence and heat transfer in complex fluids (viscoelastic fluids, dielectric liquids or ferrofluids). His research approach is based both on theoretical and experimental developments. For his research funding, has obtained about 5.5 M€ of research grants from different sources.  He has published more than 100 articles in referred journals and edited two books. He has supervised 22 Ph.D. students and advised 12 post-doctoral researchers. He has organized many national and international workshops. Innocent Mutabazi has a large network of scientific collaborations around the world: United Kigndom, Russia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Algeria, Morocco, Burundi.He has acted as Vice-President of Research of the University of Le Havre for 4 years and Interim President of Normandy University for 3 years. From 2008 to 2019, he acted as director of the Laboratory of Waves and Complex Media (47 permanent researchers, 30 Ph.D., 10 post-docs and 12 Staff).

Abstract:
When a fluid is subject to a temperature gradient, above a critical value of the temperature difference, the conduction state loses it stability and it bifurcates to a convective regime which appears to be more efficient mean of heat transfer as it is associated with a fluid motion.

The lecture will address some physical aspects of the thermal convection in incompressible fluids and some of their applications in nature and technology. A special focus will be made on so-called Rayleigh-Bénard convection and how it is connected to the Lorenz dynamical system.