PhD Studentship in Perturbation Dynamics of Turbulence AE0033_v2 (YH)

Imperial College London

PhD Studentship in Theoretical and Computational Fluid Mechanics

Perturbation dynamics of turbulence

Applications are invited for a Ph.D. studentship in the Departments of Aeronautics. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work on the perturbation dynamics on turbulence funded by European Office of Airforce Research and Development of US Airforce under the supervision of Dr Yongyun Hwang.

Turbulence encountered in many aeronautical engineering applications is commonly with various forms of external disturbances and perturbations: e.g. surface roughness, wind gust, rain, ice and acoustic noise. Understanding and characterization of how such perturbations affect the dynamics and statistics of turbulence are of crucial importance for prediction and modelling of the flow, and they ultimately offer valuable physical insights into controlling turbulence in a robust way. Despite the importance, turbulence is an extremely high-dimensional chaos which makes achieving this task fundamentally difficult due to what is popularly known as the `butterfly effect' (i.e. the sensitivity of chaotic dynamical system to initial condition). Focussing on wall-bounded shear flows, the proposed research aims to develop a novel input-output analysis framework that characterizes the effect of ‘perturbation' embedded to turbulence, combining the theoretical tools involving dynamical systems, optimisation and data-driven modelling.

The proposed PhD research will provide fundamental physical insights into the perturbation dynamics in wall-bounded turbulence. Ultimately, it will play an important role in modelling and controlling the precise physical mechanisms of turbulent skin-friction generation, heat transfer, and noise generation, the central processes underpinning many aeronautical design processes.

The post-holder will gain experience in:

• Theoretical and computational fluid mechanics;
• Linear and nonlinear dynamical systems;
• Statistical state dynamics modelling;
• Optimisation and data-driven approaches for fluid mechanics.

In addition, the successful candidate will be expected to submit publications to refereed journals and to present their findings at major international conferences. 

Applicants should have a strong background in fluid mechanics. Applications are invited from candidates who possess (or expect to gain) a first-class honours MEng or higher degree or equivalent in Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Physics and related areas. 

The studentship is for 3.5 years and will provide full coverage of tuition fees and an annual tax-free stipend of approximately £19,668 for Home, EU and International students.

Information on fee status can be found at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/fees-and-funding/tuition-fees/fee-status/

Start date-Oct’23

If you are interested in applying, please contact Dr Yongyun Hwang (y.hwang@imperial.ac.uk).

For queries regarding application process, contact Lisa Kelly at l.kelly@imperial.ac.uk

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