Introduction

TUSAIL is an Innovative Training Network funded by Horizon 2020 which comprises 16 academic and industrial partners in total, led by the University of Edinburgh. TUSAIL stands for “Training in Upscaling particle Systems: Advancing Industry across Length-scales”. Over the course of four years, TUSAIL will train 15 early-career researchers (ESRs) through a combination of PhD research, scientific training and industrial secondments.
The reliable, validated simulation methodologies and tools developed in TUSAIL will be disseminated to industry, enabling quantitative predictions of large industrial processes which will be of value for design, operation and optimisation.

About the TUSAIL Project

The overarching research goal of TUSAIL is to establish physics-based modelling, starting from characterising a small amount of a powder, to predict the behaviour of large industrial unit operations and processes via reliable upscaling methodologies and tools, bridging the gap between micro-mechanics and the industrial scale. Four main unit operations will be considered: mixing, transport and discharge, milling and agglomeration. Three complementary upscaling approaches will be developed based on (i) population balance modelling (PBM), (ii) coarse-grained meso-particle methods, and (iii) coupling between discrete and continuum methods. Each of these three upscaling approaches forms a core work package (WP) of TUSAIL; similar numbers of early-stage researchers (ESRs) will contribute to each of these WPs.

A fourth, overarching WP involves experiments at various length scales including single-particle characterisation tests and element tests for calibration, and lab-scale, pilot-scale and industrial-scale experiments for process validation. The interaction of the four scientific work packages and the participation of ESRs in them is graphically summarised in an interaction roadmap.