The Computational Science & Engineering Laboratory (CSE Lab) of ETH Zurich lead by Professor Petros Koumoutsakos wins the Milton Van Dyke Award presented at the 65th Annual Conference of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society, November 18-20, 2012, in San Diego, CA.

This award highlights photographs and videos that illustrate both experimental and numerical investigations of a wide variety of flow phenomena. Judged by a distinguished international panel of referees, winning entries were selected based upon criteria of scientific merit, originality, and artistry/aesthetic appeal.

The simulations of shock-bubble interactions were realized on the CSCS supercomputer «Monte Rosa» by Babak Hejazialhosseini, Diego Rossinelli and Petros Koumoutsakos.

The video shows a computer simulation of a Mach 3 normal shock wave in air that is directed at a helium bubble. The bubble is compressed as the shock wave passes over it. Vorticity develops on the bubble-air interface and deforms it, then a jet of air shoots out. This sequence of events is followed by the generation of a long-lasting vortical core and finally of a complex mixing zone. The employed software enables simulations with up to 250 billion cells on a supercomputer, and 4 billion cells were used to produce this video.