TUSAIL is an Innovative Training Network 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, from the beginning of the project in March 2021, TUSAIL will train 15 early-career researchers to meet industry’s requirements for highly skilled staff in the multi-disciplinary field of upscaling industrial particle processes. 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 optimization.

Particle systems are ubiquitous both in industry and in our daily lives, from pharmaceuticals and bulk chemicals to agricultural products (rice, grains, flour) and formulated consumer goods (detergent powders, infant formula, instant coffee). A major challenge in industry is dealing with the multi-scale nature of particle systems; the behavior of a large-scale industrial process ultimately depends on how individual particles interact with one another. Industrial surveys report that almost 10% of global energy is wasted because 40% of the capacity of industrial plants is lost due to undesired and misunderstood particle phenomena.

At present, simulation methods struggle to meet this challenge. Particle-scale modeling techniques provide a wealth of useful information, but for relatively small numbers of particles, so cannot be used to design, control or optimize an industrial-scale process in a robust way. Modeling techniques which can be applied at large scale lack the crucial physics originating from interparticle interactions.

The overarching research goal of TUSAIL is to establish physics-based modeling, starting from characterizing a small amount of a powder, to predict the behavior 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:

1. Population balance modeling (PBM).
2. Coarse-grained meso-particle methods.
3. 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 characterization 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 summarized in an interaction roadmap.