Chemical Engineering

This PhD tackles a fundamental open problem in soft matter physics that sits at the heart of multiple industries and natural systems: the rheology of dense suspensions of elongated particles. Why does a slurry packed with cellulose fibres flow so differently from one packed with spherical particles? What common principles govern the flow and mechanical behaviour of crystal-laden lavas, river logjams, recycled carbon-fibre composites and bacterial suspensions, and how do we develop predictive models useful to real world practitioners? Despite decades of progress on dense suspensions of spheres, culminating in unified flow laws and quantitative theories of jamming, an equivalent description for rod-shaped particles do not yet exist. You will help build it. The project will combine particle-based simulation with continuum modelling to deliver the first physics based constitutive model for dense rod suspensions, resolving how alignment, packing fraction and heterogeneous flow interact to produce stress. You will work at an active frontier of contemporary soft matter physics, joining a group with a strong international profile and an active track record of publishing in Physical Review Letters, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and other important journals. The science is genuinely fundamental, but its applications are immediate: your insights will feed directly into our basic understanding of manufacturing process such as speciality chemical crystallisation, composite recycling for the circular economy, and volcanic hazard prediction. You will become fluent in modern computational soft matter, writing and deploying GPU-based particle simulation codes; utilising Edinburgh's Eddie cluster and ARCHER2; statistical analyses of high-dimensional simulation data; and continuum modelling. You will have the opportunity to write your own codes from scratch and to use standard open source codes such as LAMMPS and OpenFOAM. You will graduate with a skillset that maps onto careers in academic research, computational materials science, engineering R&D and quantitative industry roles. You will be supported by Dr Chris Ness, Reader in Chemical Engineering, who runs an active group with a strong record of researcher development. You will be embedded in an international collaborator network, will attend major conferences in the field, and will contribute to open-source software releases that the wider community will use. We are seeking a motivated graduate in physics, applied maths, mechanical or chemical engineering, materials science or a related discipline, with an insatiable curiosity about how things flow. Prior simulation experience is welcome but not required.

Minimum entry requirements

• a 2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent).
• the University’s English language requirements.

Funding may be available for this project, please enquire.

Further information and other funding options.

This industrial focussed project will generate fundamental insights into the propagation of smouldering combustion. Timber and bio-based materials are increasingly found in applications within the built environment and industrial systems. It is therefore increasingly important that engineers understand the hazards that they present. While the flaming combustion (and extinction) of timber is relatively well understood, smouldering of solid wood has been less extensively studied. Smouldering combustion is a slow, low-temperature, flameless form of combustion. It can occurs in porous materials like peat, biomass, and polymer foams which form a carbon rich char when heated. Unlike flaming combustion which occurs in the gas phase, the combustion reaction of smouldering occurs on the surface of the solid. Smouldering plays an important role in our understanding of problems in wildfires (loss of organic soils, release of carbon), and engineered systems (e.g. soil remediation). This project will take an experimental approach to quantifying the processes underpinning smouldering propagation in timber and wood-based products. Of particular interest are evaluating the effect of parameters related to the wood (scale, grain orientation, moisture content) and the environmental variables (oxidiser flow and composition). The goal of this project is to measure the smouldering rates for large (~0.5 m3) volumes of timber and to quantify the effect of boundary conditions, timber density, and grain direction on the rate of smouldering. This will be achieved through an experimental programme on a range of different specimens of timber. The experimental work may be accompanied by detailed material characterisation, study of the reaction mechanism and numerical modelling to interrogate the smouldering processes in more detail to advance fundamental understanding of this important fire process.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103058 

https://doi.org/10.1016/0360-1285(85)90004-8 

https://publications.iafss.org/publications/fss/3/565/view/fss_3-565.pdf

This project will build upon existing work already performed at the University of Edinburgh’s Fire Research Centre. The project will utilise existing equipment as well as designing new apparatus on an as-needed basis. The project is entirely sponsored by Nuclear Transport Solutions. The student should expect the project to involve significant time in the Rushbrook Fire Laboratory as well as analysis of data and the development of underpinning analytical models.

The project is available to (UK+EU settled/pre-settled). The candidate must meet the English qualification requirements as described at: Further information on English language requirements for EU/Overseas applicants.

This project is fully funded for a home student (fees and stipend).

To qualify as a Home student, you must fulfil one of the following criteria:

• You are a UK student OR
• You are an EU student with settled/pre-settled status who also has 3 years residency in the UK/EEA/Gibraltar/Switzerland immediately before the start of your programme. International students are not eligible.

Further information and other funding options.