Victor Francia

Victor’s work looks into applied research in complex multiphase flows. He has a hybrid profile with experience in fundamental research e.g. granular physics, but also working with industry in feasibility and implementation studies, the design of pilot and full-scale units, commercialization and operation. His research focuses in the creation of an inter-disciplinary multi-scale platform to study dynamic structures in multiphase systems. Victor looks at how mesoscopic structures such as clusters, agglomerates or deposits form and break, how they affect transport phenomena and how they respond to external actuation. His overall goal is to utilize their dynamic behaviour to create more efficient and responsive processes, devices and materials able to readapt to external changes to shape a new generation of smart technology targeted at the manufacturing, energy, environment and healthcare sectors.  

His current research follows three themes: Dynamic Processes, Dynamic Fouling and Smart Materials. They look into how micro and mesostructure emerges in a multiphase flow and at the surfaces of materials and devices, and how it transitions from static to dynamic conditions. Victor’s experience covers fluid dynamics of single and multiple phases (e.g. turbulence, vortex flow, anemometry, atomization, aerosols), transport phenomena (e.g. heat exchangers, dryers, gas-solid reactors), and particulate processes (e.g. fluidization, granulation, agglomeration). In his doctoral research, he defined a new platform to study agglomeration during spray drying and gave the first evidence of a fascinating phenomenon: the generation of dynamic structure of deposits that control the efficiency of an operation worth multiple $ billions/year. His work in fouling then expanded to the design of new reactors and heat exchangers in the energy sector, and more recently, his research at Imperial and University College London has focused in modelling particle-laden flows and intensified processes. In the last few years, Victor has worked with UCL creating a dynamically structured fluidised bed using oscillating gas flows to control the rheology of a powder.

Current areas of interest in his group include:

• Complex multiphase flow - Multi-scale experimentation and modelling.
• Process design & optimization - Spray drying, fluidization, granulation.
• Process intensification - Oscillatory and vortex flows.
• Dynamic fouling - Heat exchanger and reactor design, membrane technology.
• Industry 4.0 - Integration of multi-scale and data-driven modelling strategies.
• Fluid dynamics - single and multiphase turbulent flows.
• Dynamic self-organization - Rheology, clustering, agglomeration, breakage.

Victor is a chemical engineer from the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, and holds postgraduate qualifications in environmental science, law and humanitarian engineering. He is a process design scientist with experience in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Energy and Water sectors having worked for start-ups, universities and multinational companies. After graduating in 2006, Victor worked in the private sector managing seawater desalinization facilities for Acciona (Spain) and as an R&D manager for Procter & Gamble (UK). He then obtained a professional doctorate while working for P&G and the University of Birmingham on spray drying of granular detergents in collaboration with academics in the universities of Leeds, Sheffield and Imperial College London.

In 2012, Victor obtained external funds to support a research programme at the Thermofluids division in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, where he worked with Dr Rigopoulos modelling multiphase flow in turbulent swirling flows and later become a consultant for the oil & gas industry i.e. ExxonMobil, on the design of heat exchangers undergoing fouling (Hexxcell Ltd, Imperial College London). In 2016, Victor joined the Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering at University College London working as a Research Associate and later Teaching Fellow. He taught courses on design, heat transfer and fluidization, and worked with Prof Coppens and Prof Miodownik (Institute of Making) understanding how powders structure and can organise into macroscopic patterns under external actuation in order to develop smart processes and materials. In 2019, Victor joined us at the Institute of Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering in 2019 as an Assistant Professor on complex multiphase flow and responsive technology.

Complex multiphase flow; Agglomeration; Fouling; Fluidization; Responsive technology; Spray drying; Vortex flows; Process intensification; Industry 4.0