Location: Event DetailsDate/Time: Wednesday March 14, 2012 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Location: Atlanta, GAPhone: (404) 894-1838 Email: events@chbe.gatech.eduExtras: Free food! Contact: Josie Giles School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (404) 385-2299 events@gatech.edu Description: The annual Ashton Cary Lecture series features distinguished scholars in fields of significance to chemical engineering. The visiting lecturers, in addition to presenting seminars on recent engineering advances, participate in informal discussions with Georgia Tech faculty and students. The 27th Annual Ashton Cary Lecturer, Dr. William B. Russel, is the A.W. Marks ’19 Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Dean of the Graduate School at Princeton University. He presents Collapsing Colloidal Gels: How and When? as the 27th Annual Ashton Cary lecturer.Collapsing Colloidal Gels: How and When? Colloidal dispersions with weakly attractive, and generally short-range, interparticle forces often form gels instead of separating into two equilibrium phases. These gels represent a non-equilibrium and non-ergodic state that has attracted considerable attention in the field over the past 5-10 years. An interesting facet of some systems is the propensity to suddenly collapse after left standing for some time under normal gravity. This delayed collapse seems to be controlled by thermally activated creep, which produces a time scale that increases roughly exponentially with the strength of attraction. The driving force must be a combination of the gravitational load and thermodynamic forces seeking to drive a gas-liquid or gas-crystal phase separation. The collapse takes several forms, ranging from a rapid homogenous disintegration of the gel to opening of fissures that are quickly widened by fluid flow. While a correlation of some collapse times has been constructed, no theory or model exists capable of anticipating the phenomena.Related Links Ashton Cary Lecture School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Dr. William B. Russel The School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) is one of eight schools in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Established in 1901, ChBE is one of the first chemical engineering programs in the country. With 700 undergraduates, 200 graduate students, and more than 40 full-time faculty members, it is also one of the largest. ChBE faculty members are involved in 13 comprehensive areas of education, research, and commercialization with a strategic focus on energy and sustainability, biotechnology, materials and nanotechnology, and complex systems.