There has been an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to the workshop both from academia and from industry, and representatives from companies as diverse as Exxon, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Xerox will be in attendance.
Many industries depend on the processing of granular materials.
Despite the importance and ubiquity of granular materials, much of what people know about handling granular materials comes from experience and is based on trial and error rather than on a scientific understanding of how these materials behave. At Chicago, one of the problems researchers are trying to understand is how and why granular materials undergo convection when they are shaken in a cylinder. Grains at the bottom of the cylinder rise up through the middle and then down in a narrow path along the sides of the cylinder. Applying the medical technology of magnetic resonance imaging recently gave Chicago researchers an unprecedented look at what is actually happening inside the cylinder. He explained that Chicago is in a unique position to examine these sorts of questions.