PhD Studentship - Mass and Heat Transfer in Energetic Ocean Surface Waves

This is a full-time, funded PhD opportunity in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. It is open to both home and overseas students. Please note that only home fees will be covered - eligible overseas students will need to make up the difference in tuition fee funding.

This opportunity provides an annual stipend of the research council minimum rate (set by UKRI) of £19,237 for 2024/25.

Please note that the expected start date for home students is October 2024 and international students January 2025.

PROJECT CONTACT

Dr Zhihua Ma (z.ma@mmu.ac.uk)

PROJECT ADVERT

This studentship is offered as part of wider Manchester Met investment in our future thought leaders, this represents an opportunity to join the Faculty of Science and Engineering’s growing doctoral research community committed to excellent research with impact.

Ocean waves are crucial in engineering and environmental sciences. Energetic waves can severely damage seawalls, ships, oil/gas platforms and marine renewable energy infrastructure. More broadly, ocean waves also influence the earth’s climate, weather, and eco-systems by facilitating the mass and heat exchange across the air-sea interface. Accurate estimate of mass and heat transfer in waves is of utmost importance in: 1) formulating more accurate weather forecasting models, and 2) better predicting extreme loadings on marine structures.

Numerical modelling provides a feasible way to overcome the limit of theoretical methods and measurement technologies to acquire the needed fine-scale data to investigate the fundamental physics.

The project will build on the Mathematical Modelling and Flow Analysis Group’s most recent research achievement to develop a new-generation interdisciplinary physical-engineering-environmental numerical modelling framework to investigate mass and heat transfer in energetic ocean waves.

PROJECT AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

• Develop an interdisciplinary physical-engineering-environmental numerical framework for modelling mass and heat transfer in ocean surface waves.
• Determine the roles of fluid diffusivity and wave motion in mass and heat transfer under still water and non-breaking monochromatic wave conditions.
• Determine wave steepness effects on mass/heat transfer rate under various wave conditions.
• Determine heat penetration depth in water columns for wave groups subject to modulation instability under non-, weakly- and strongly-breaking conditions.

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROJECT

Applicants should hold, or expect to receive, a First Class or high Upper Second Class Honours degree (or the equivalent) in in Physics, Engineering or Mathematics.

A master’s level qualification in Applied/Computational Mathematics, Engineering or similar would be desirable.

Experiences in one or several of the following areas would be beneficial:

• Computational Fluid Dynamics,
• Hydrodynamics and Thermodynamics,
• Numerical modelling of heat transfer.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested applicants should contact Dr Zhihua Ma for an informal discussion.

To apply you will need to complete the online application form for a full-time PhD in Mathematics (or download the PGR application form).

You should also complete the PGR thesis proposal and Narrative CV addressing the project’s aims and objectives, demonstrating how the skills you have maps to the area of research and why you see this area as being of importance and interest. 

If applying online, you will need to upload your statement in the supporting documents section (via the ‘Apply’ button above), or email the application form and statement to PGRAdmissions@mmu.ac.uk.

Expected start date: Home students October 2024. International students January 2025.

Please quote the reference: SciEng-ZM-2024-ocean-surface-waves

Find out more

Email address: z.ma@mmu.ac.uk

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