EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Working Party of Multiphase Fluid Flow

Minutes of the Business Meeting

• Meeting
  The meeting took place on the occasion of the 15-th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering "CHISA 2002" (Prague, Czech Republic, 25-29 August, 2002).

• Address
  Prof Drahoš welcomed the participants, distributed copies of the auxiliary source material (see the paper copy of the Agenda and Enclosures you were given), and outlined the agenda.

1. Approval of the presence of Dr Aaltola delegated by Prof Fogelholm as his substitute for the present meeting
   Approved.

2. Approval of the last Minutes (Nuremberg 2001 and New Orleans 2001)
   The minutes were approved without objections.

3. Information about meeting of WP chairmen and EFCE Executive Board members (Paris, France, April 2002)
   Prof Drahoš informed the participants about the meeting he was invited to attend as the chairmen of our WP. The goal of the meeting was to make an inventory of WPs and discuss the course to be taken in the future. The meeting attended 12 WP chairmen, while four chairmen submitted their brief reports in writing. The following points were discussed and reviewed in the first part of the meeting: the structure and mode of operation of WPs, the national representation in WPs and direct admission of supplementary members, the creation of new WPs or other kinds of structure, the necessity of involving young people, and the use of the EFCE web site. The President of EFCE emphasised that WPs are the core elements of the Federation and, among others they have to supply consistent input to EU research programmes. He said that EFCE needs to improve its visibility and it must open up to young researchers. It was agreed that some parts of the WP directives have become out of time since the document was approved a quarter of century ago. The discussion which followed showed that WP chairmen would welcome a structure or mechanism that would enhance cooperation and would at the same time open the Federation to all interested experts in specific fields

   The second part of the meeting was devoted to the presentation of WP activities, projects and perspectives. The chairmen were requested to report: the number of WP meetings in the last two years, the average attendance of those meetings, the industrial vs. academic ratio, the main difficulties in leading the WP, and the perspectives and projects for the next two years. The report and comments presented by Prof Drahoš are attached (see files WP-Paris).

   All participants of our business meeting agreed that the WP directives are merely a framework of the WP operation and its activities must be generated by the members themselves. The following main problems of our WP were specified and discussed: long-term passivity of several members, missing members from industry, and low attractiveness for younger people.

4. Information about 2nd EMSI Meeting (Stockholm, Sweden, June 2002)
   Prof Drahoš presented a brief overview of the meeting and mentioned the newly established EMSI programme. He asked Prof Azzopardi, who was intensely involved in the main discussion on the EMSI structure, to familiarize the members with the important points of the meeting (see also http://www.emsi.fzk.de/). Prof Azzopardi recalled that EMSI is presently focussed at defining its own structure and goal. There was an apparent necessity to organize the rather amorphous field of multiphase flow into several topics (see Enclosure) both to define the main streams of the current research activity, be flexible, and, to be more clearly visible to the audience to be addressed. An attempt was made to define the EMSI goals in an operational way, what to offer and to whom. Forming a basis for germination of international teams for joint-projects /namely of 6th FP/ is of a great importance. EMSI must be flexible to match the priorities (hence the financial resources) of EC. New technologies and penetration into the area traditionally occupied by chemical engineers present a real challenge. In particular, providing a methodology for a given problem and finding the experts may be one of the specific activities. Prof Giot mentioned that having a list of EMSI activities would be beneficial to our WP. Also, how do the EC key research topic arise? Are they chosen regardless the current scientific activity, or, do they reflect what the scientists are presently interested in? Dr. Ruzicka will send the full version of the EMSI minutes to the members (see file attached). Many of the WP members are also individual members of EMSI. The relation between our WP and EMSI will crystallize in future.

5. WP homepage
   Prof Drahoš informed the members about the present state of the development of the page located on the ICPF server in Prague (www.multiphase-efce.org). The homepage is linked with EFCE homepage (www.efce.info), which runs at the DECHEMA server. The three items 'Meetings', 'Members' and 'News' of the main menu are already active. The principal item 'Database' that should contain the information on the multiphase research in the member countries throughout the Europe is in a preparatory stage and its structure was discussed. A broad and quite general discussion was held on this point where all participants contributed actively. The outcome summarizes as follows. The database should provide as full and fresh as possible information about the current multiphase research in individual member countries. The database should enable to search according to

   1. places (country, city, university/institute)
   2. people (names)
   3. key words (reflecting the topics and field of activity)

   The ultimate reference in the database will point to home pages of the research units. The administrator will provide the members with a simple unified electronic form where the information required will be filled to, and the form will be sent back via email. The national representative will be responsible for providing the complete and true information about the research in his/her own country (the national Chem. Eng. Society would be a good resource of the basic information). Some points regarding the page remain open. Prof Olujic mentioned the dark side of page, where unwanted contacts from all over the world may come and bother the researchers. Prof Zun asked the merit of making the page and opening it freely to public. It was mentioned that EMSI may have a similar database we only want to create. However, such a base has not been found at the EMSI site (http://www.emsi.fzk.de/).

6. Joint projects within the 6th FP
   This point was partially discussed under Point 3, since one of the main targets of EMSI is to get people together to prepare proposals for joint-projects. There is a possibility of pre-evaluation of preliminary proposals aimed at 6th FP projects by a commission of EC to improve them and thus rise the probability of success of the definitive applications. EMSI submitted an own 'Expression of interest' - see the EMSI web site, then the menu item 'Programme'.

7. New members and sleeping members
   Prof Drahoš recalled that we do not have a representative from Portugal. He, therefore, suggested a possible candidate, Prof Jose Teixeira from Universidade do Minho, Braga, and asked the members for their opinion. It was agreed that Prof Teixeira is accepted provided that he will be approved by the national Society. It was also found useful to introduce a category of 'Invited Members' that are not national representative: according to the latest information from the EFCE Executive Board meeting held in Prague during the CHISA Congress, this (or similar) category will soon be introduced officially by EFCE. It was agreed, in accordance with the Directives for EFCE WP, to terminate the membership of the delegates who failed to participate in the activities of WP for a period of two consecutive years. Our records indicate that Dr Bernard, Dr Hamersma, Prof Dyakonov, Prof Gourdon, Mr Valle, and Dr Ziebland fulfil the above criterion for membership termination. They are expected to respond to these Minutes and give clear answer regarding their future WP activities until 15 October 2002.

8. Future WP meetings
   It was decided that our next meeting will be held at the ECCE-4 in Granada, Spain, 21-25 September 2003 (see www.anque.es/ecce-4). Prof Drahoš asked the organizers and they promised to introduce a new subtopic 5.5 Multiphase Flows, which would be partially covered by our WP.

9. Miscellaneous
   The specialized one-day 'Symposium on transient multiphase flows' organized by our WP within the CHISA Congress was found to be a very useful event.

   There being no other points, Prof Drahoš thanked the delegates and invited them for the traditional dinner.

Files enclosed:

• WP-Paris_2002.doc
• WP-Paris_comments.doc
• EMSI Minutes