PhD Studentship: Development of Robust Wall Modelling for Practical Aerodynamic High Fidelity Prediction

Is the project University funded or unfunded?: University funded

Funding eligibility (please select one): Competition funded project (students worldwide)

Is the project UKRI funded?: No

Is the project industry funded?: No

Is the project part of the Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship?: No

Closing date of advert: 19th February 2025

Start date: October 2025

Full-time/part-time availability: Full-time 3 years

Who is eligible to apply?: Both UK and International

Name of primary supervisor/CDT lead: Hao Xia

Primary supervisor email address: h.xia@lboro.ac.uk

Primary supervisor telephone number: +441509227232

Link to supervisor's online staff profile page: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aae/staff/hao-xia/

Project detail:

Eddy-resolving methods have gained enormous interest in turbulent flow simulations recently as they rely much less on problem-dependent Reynolds-averaged based closure models (also known as RANS). Without any stringent requirements in fully resolving the wall turbulence, WMLES (Wall-Modelled Large-Eddy Simulations) has shown great promise.

However, unphysical separation bubbles (often laminar) can often occur in applying WMLES, especially near the leading edge where the flow experiences a certain amount of adverse pressure gradient. This poses a potential significant drawback to the application of WMLES to practical aerodynamic predictions where Reynolds numbers are high and strong adverse pressure gradients are almost unavoidable.

The proposed project investigates how efficient methods of introducing the onset of turbulence via external forcing can mitigate the problem and can be practically useable. More fundamentally, the project will look into a “relaxation principle” in the log region of the turbulent boundary layer that could naturally allow turbulence onset to take place without any external forcing. The project will utilise national and regional high performance parallel computing resources to conduct high fidelity numerical simulations. A hierarchy of test cases of practical meaningfulness will be considered, including the publicly available Airbus XRF1 configuration.

Entry requirements:

Applicants should have or expect to achieve a 2:1 in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering or Physics.

English language requirements:

Applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements. Further details are available on the International website (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/international/applicants/english/).

Funding information:

The studentship is for 3 years and provides a tax-free stipend of £19,237 per annum for the duration of the studentship plus university tuition fees.

Bench fees required: No

How to apply:

All applications should be made online. Under programme name, select *the school of AACME /AAE*. Please quote the advertised reference number: * AACME-24-031* in your application.

To avoid delays in processing your application, please ensure that you submit the minimum supporting documents.

Project search terms: computational physics, fluid mechanics

Other search terms not listed: Computational Fluid Dynamics; Large Eddy Simulation; High Performance Computing

Email Address AACME: Aacme.Pgr@mailbox.lboro.ac.uk

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