PhD Students
Currently within FLUTE there are 50 students. All our students are skilled in multiple research areas such as: Low-carbon vehicles, Two-phase flow tomography, Chemical process engineering, Thin film flow, MATLAB computation, Gas adsorption, Thermodynamics, Aerodynamics and much more.
Junze Chu
PhD title: Experimental and numerical investigation on temperature field in liquid to air membrane energy exchanger (LAMEE)
Supervisors: Dr Jie Zhu and Dr Guohui Gan
Key skills: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); Phase change; Liquid to air membrane energy exchanger (LAMEE)
Research summary
The main target of my task is to optimise the membrane based liquid desiccant air conditioning performance by investigating the temepratue field distribution inside the LAMEE with experimental and numercical methods. In the experiment process, sevaral parameters are investagated such as the inlet air velocity, inlet air temperature, inlet air humidity, solution mass flow rate , solution temperature, solution concentration and solution type etc. Numerical simulation is generated to compare with the experiment results. Software such as ANSYS Fluent and COMSOL are used for simulation.After validating the numerical model, parameters can be changed for further performance prediction.
Paul Connolly
PhD title: Investigation of Asymmetric Drag in Swimming and its Implication to Swimsuit Design
Supervisors: Prof Kwing-So Choi and Dr Donald Giddings
Key skills: Wind tunnel, Particle Image Velocimetry, Force analyses, MatLab - flow visualisation
Research summary
My PhD wishes to investigate and quantify the predominant source of hydrodynamic drag in swimming using several techniques available to us, such as particle image velocimetry (PIV), flow visualisation technique and force measurement. Where a water tank, a swimming pool and a wind tunnel will be used to help determine the flow structures created during swimming.
In swimming, the primary source of propulsion and resistance is thought to come from the intra-cyclic variations of the arms and legs movements. Thus, under these conditions, little is known about the concomitant flow properties, particularly asymmetry flow field in the near-wake of a swimmer, which are believed to be a significant source of the swimmer’s hydrodynamic drag.
The results will be carefully analyzed to establish an understanding of drag forces and wake turbulence for the advancement of fluid mechanics related to swimming. For instance, underlining the dominant fluid forces involved, and the flow pattern generated in the near wake during swimming. The findings will be used to improve swimming techniques for UK athletes. As well as support the development of swimsuit design for Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This ICASE awarded PhD study is funded by EPSRC and Speedo International.
Evan Goldman
PhD title: Developing ejector technology for the intensification of carbon capture processes
Supervisors: Dr Buddhik Hewakandamby
Research Summary
I am working with Transvac to develop ejector technology for the intensification of carbon capture processes. This involves research into the fluid mechanics and mass transfer behaviour of liquid jet ejectors. In particular, my work aims to reduce the equipment cost and energy consumption of carbon capture technologies.
Yarong Liang
PhD title: Enhancement of vapour absorption using nanofluid influenced by the magnetic field.
Supervisors: Dr Shenyi Wu and Dr Guohui Gan
Research Summary
The vapour absorption process in a key process for the efficiency of vapour absorption refrigeration systems. The aim of the research is to enhance the vapour absorption process by use of nanofluid. The research, through mathematic modelling and lab experiment, will enable us to understand the roles of nanoparticle in the heat and mass transfer in the vapour absorption process. The knowledge gained from the research could be useful for designing innovative and high efficient vapour absorbers. The objectives of the research are to establish a simulation model which can predicate the performance of the vapour absorption with the nanoparticles subject to controlled movement and optimise the parameters to maximise the effectiveness of the vapour absorption process.
Keziah Magit
PhD title: Investigating the Effect of Viscosity on Gas- Liquid Flows Around Vertical and Horizontal Bends
Supervisors: Dr Buddhik Hewakandamby and Dr David Hann
Research Summary
Simultaneous flow of gas-liquid in pipes presents considerable challenges and difficulties due to the complexity of the two-flow mixture. Oil-gas industries need to handle highly viscous liquids, hence studying the effect of changing the fluid viscosity becomes imperative as this is typically encountered in deeper offshore exploration.
Pipe fittings including bends are widely used in most of the industrial process such as evaporation, condensation, and refrigeration. The complex nature of gas-liquid flow behavior increases in the presence of bends, because of centrifugal force induced by curvature. Therefore, predicting the unsteady hydrodynamics of the flow around bends is crucial for process design and flow control. This becomes more demanding in offshore location where pipe failure due to vibration and flooding incidents are unaffordable. The effect of bends is more pronounced within the intermittent flow region, particularly slug flow.
Slug flow is a complex flow pattern that is commonly encountered in oil and gas transportation and production. The prediction of hydrodynamic parameters of liquid slug, mainly frequency and maximum length, is necessary to avoid some operational issues such as flooding and high-pressure fluctuations. The redistribution of multiphase flows around bends has received little attention in the peer review literature. Most of the investigations have been restricted to single-phase flow, a few papers address the issue of gas-liquid systems but most of the reported experiments are confined to pipes of diameters that are much smaller than those used in the industry and in air-water flows. (Mukhtar, 2011) and (Rajab, 2017) study on gas-liquid flows using larger diameter pipe but both used oil of one viscosity. Hence, this current work realized the importance of the experimental characterization of slug flow, as such will focus on effect of viscosity on gas-liquid flow around horizontal/vertical bends and Mechanistic model of the two- phase flow from the generated data.
Ismail El Mellas
PhD title: Multiscale modelling of boiling flows in complex micro-geometries for next-generation thermal management of high-power-density micro-devices
Supervisors: Dr Mirco Magnini, Dr David Hann and Dr Matteo Icardi
Key Skills: Heat and mass transfer, Phase Change, CFD, OpenFOAM
Research Summary
Research focused on the investigation and develop a multiscale simulation tool to perform numerical experiments of boiling in micro-geometries that ticks all the boxes: direct numerical simulation of two-phase flows, boiling/condensation, high-accuracy surface tension, micro-scale effects, contact angle dynamics, thermocapillary effects, conjugate heat transfer, adaptive mesh refinement, code parallelisation, open-source repository, code portability. Such a comprehensive simulation tool is unavailable at present. It will enable fundamental analyses of boiling phenomena in micro-geometries that will guide the design of the next-generation micro-evaporators for the thermal management of high-power-density devices such as computer CPUs, battery packs for electric vehicles, PEM fuel cells, to name a few.
Christos Antoniou
PhD title: The Influence of Fuel Properties and Injection Strategies on Advanced Turbulent Jet Ignition
Supervisors: Prof Alasdair Cairns, Dr Antonino La Rocca, Prof Christopher Gerada and Dr Gaurang Vakil
Research Summary
Turbulent Jet Ignition is a type of pre-chamber assisted combustion system that has the potential to offer near-zero pollutant emissions and improved fuel economy in future passenger cars by enabling stable combustion at high dilution ratios. It has recently attracted interest by automotive manufacturers and it is one of the core topics within the ICE group at the University of Nottingham.
My research mainly focuses on optimising the fuelling strategies associated with this technology and developing in-house simulation tools for thermodynamic analysis of such combustion. The work to be undertaken during this PhD programme involves single cylinder testing, thermodynamic analysis and simulation of ICEs, as well as the investigation of alternative fuels. In addition, the potential coupling of Turbulent Jet Ignition to electrified systems will be examined towards the development of ultra-low emission hybrid powertrains.
Zak Waite
PhD title: Sustainable Hydrogen CDT: To a 100% Hydrogen Domestic Boiler
Supervisors: Dr Donald Giddings, Prof David Grant, Dr Robin Irons
Research Summary
Currently, there are existing hydrogen infrastructure projects in progress in Europe (GRHYD in France) to use a mix of methane and hydrogen due to the safety issues and avoiding boiler burner redesign. Hydrogen burns quite differently to methane, with a faster flame speed, and a transparent flame, such that it is harder to control and maintain the flame in steady combustion, and the radiative transfer is weaker than for the visible methane flame. These characteristics require redesign of domestic boiler burners if hydrogen is to be used as a network fuel.