Skip to main content


Prof. Rainer Helmig
Contact Info
rainer.helmig@iws.uni-stuttgart.de

BIO

Prof. Rainer Helmig is the head of the Institute for Modelling Hydraulic and Environmental Systems, Department of Hydromechanics and Modelling of Hydrosystems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Rainer Helmig is widely recognized as a pioneer and visionary in developing numerical modelling concepts in the fields of groundwater hydrology, subsurface energy storage, and coupled processes at the interface between porous media and free-flow compartments. 

Over the course of his illustrious career, Rainer Helmig has consistently produced groundbreaking research that has pushed the boundaries of knowledge in the field of porous-media research. His work has been instrumental in solving real-world problems, his methodologies have been adopted widely and have had a transformative impact on the field. Beyond his research contributions, Rainer Helmig has been a dedicated mentor and educator, nurturing the talents of emerging scientists and engineers in the field.

For the Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lectureship Award - Hosts may select one of two options detailed below:

Lecture 1—POROUS MEDIA AND FREE-FLOW COUPLING—from REV to pore scale and back

Flow and transport processes in domains composed of a porous medium and an adjacent free-flow region appear in a wide range of industrial, bio bio-medical and environmental applications. Industrial applications range from flow in fuel cells to drying processes; possible bio bio-medical applications include the interplay of distribution processes in blood vessels and in the surrounding tissue.
Applications in environmental systems include infiltration of overland flow during rainfall, groundwater contamination due to infiltrating pollutants and evaporation from soil. One of the key challenges for coupled free flow and porous-medium flow arises from the fact that the overall effective behaviour depends strongly on interface processes that occur on small spatial scales (pore scale), although the overall system of interest is often too large to resolve these processes explicitly in detail. REV-scale models are usually not able to capture all the relevant physical processes for such coupled systems. For the accurate description of interface phenomena, it is therefore necessary to develop model concepts that combine information gained through pore scale and REV-scale models

Lecture 2 - FROM THE BRAIN TO WATER UPTAKE OF ROOTS TO FUEL CELLS— Porous Media are „almost“ everywhere

Porous media are almost everywhere. The understanding of flow, transport and deformation processes in porous media is important for the optimization of fuel cells, energy storage, the prediction of landslides due to heavy rainfall or the spread of tumors in human tissue. In this lecture, a brief overview of the importance of porous media will be given. Using selected examples, the range from environmental to technical and relevant bio bio-issues will be covered.


The next step is to present selected modelling approaches and analyses using two concrete application examples:

  1. To use the knowledge of porous media to make better predictions when multiple sclerosis flares. What happens in the
    porous medium "brain" when the blood blood-brain barrier no longer functions properly? How can research in the field of porous media positively influence the treatment of multiple sclerosis?
  2. To discuss whether it is possible to improve water management in fuel cells as a drive technology with our knowledge of
    porous media. What role does the understanding of porous media play in the context of alternative forms of mobility such
    as fuel cells? Are our "classical models" for water transportation helpful?