Harry Van den Akker — Professor of Transport Phenomena at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; the Netherlands), and the Bernal Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Limerick, Ireland — has been named as the recipient of the 2015 BHR Group Lifetime Recognition Award in Mixing.
The Working Party on Mixing of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE; www.efce.org) has announced professor Van den Akker as this year’s winner of the triennial award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the field of mixing science and technology in the process industries throughout his 38 year career.
Professor Van den Akker spent his early career as a research engineer for Royal Dutch Shell before joining TU Delft as Professor of Transport Phenomena in 1988. Since 2013, he has held the position of the Bernal Chair of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Limerick.
Professor Van den Akker has also held visitor professor and fellow positions at King’s College London, U.K., and Princeton University, N.J.
Throughout his research career at TU Delft, he has supervised over 30 Ph.D. students, mentored assistant professors and published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on mixing, multiphase flow and turbulence.
His published work is included in the top 20 most cited articles in significant journals within the field, including Chemical Engineering Research and Design (ChERD) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Journal.
Professor Van den Akker said: “I am excited about this recognition of my research efforts in the scientifically challenging and industrially relevant field of mixing. I interpret this award as a confirmation that computational fluid dynamics techniques have really attained a firm position and role in mixing research and reactor design, in both industry and academia.
“I also see it as an encouragement to continue my explorations of Lattice Boltzmann techniques for simulating single-phase and multi-phase flow and transport phenomena in the field of chemical engineering. Last but not least, I owe acknowledgements to all former members of my Delft research group for their contributions.”
Associate Professor Giuseppina Montante, chair of the awards committee for the Working Party on Mixing, added: “The awards committee unanimously selected Professor Harry Van den Akker as the recipient of the BHR Group Lifetime Recognition Award in Mixing 2015 for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of mixing science, as recognition for the importance for his work in the European chemical engineering community and in appreciation of its industrial significance.”
The award, sponsored by BHR Group, comprised of a €1,500 cash prize and certificate. It was presented to Professor Van den Akker during the gala dinner at the 15th European Conference on Mixing, which was held in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, from 28 June – 3 July.