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

Project title: Mass and Heat Transfer in Energetic Ocean Surface Waves

Project contact: Dr Zhihua Ma

Funding info:

Home fees (2023/24) included plus an annual stipend paid at the UKRI rate
(£17,668 for 2022/23). 

Mode of study: Full time

Eligibility:

Open to home and overseas students.

Eligible overseas students will need to make up the difference in tuition fees. 

Key dates: 

Closing date: 16 October 2023

Expected start: January 2024

Project summary

Ocean surface waves are crucial in engineering and environmental sciences. Energetic breaking waves can damage or even destroy seawalls, ships, oil/gas platforms and marine renewable energy infrastructure. More broadly, ocean waves can also influence the earth’s climate, weather, and eco-systems by facilitating the mass and heat exchange beneath and across the air-sea interface.

Accurate estimate of mass and heat transfer in energetic waves is of utmost importance in:

1. formulating more accurate weather forecasting models, and
2. better predicting extreme loadings on marine structures. 

Due to the limit of theoretical methods and measurement technologies, the fundamental physical mechanism of these processes has not been fully understood yet despite the large amount of research works undertaken in the past several decades. Numerical modelling provides a feasible way to acquire the needed fine-scale data for us to investigate the fundamental physics.

The project will build on CMMFA’s most recent research achievement - the hydro-code integratedFoam - to develop a new-generation interdisciplinary physical-engineering-environmental numerical modelling framework to investigate mass and heat transfer in energetic ocean surface waves.

Aims and objectives

1. Develop an interdisciplinary physical-engineering-environmental numerical framework for modelling mass and heat transfer in ocean surface waves.
2. Determine the roles of fluid diffusivity and wave motion in mass and heat transfer under still water and non-breaking monochromatic wave conditions.
3. Determine wave steepness effects on mass/heat transfer rate under various wave conditions.
4. 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 Physics, Engineering or Mathematics. A master’s level qualification in Applied/Computational Mathematics, Engineering or similar would be desirable.

Experiences in 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 Computing and digital technology (or download the PGR application form), by clicing the 'Apply' button, above.

You should also complete the PGR thesis proposal (supplementary information) form 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, or email the application form and statement to mailto:PGRAdmissions@mmu.ac.uk.

Closing date: 16 October 2023.

Expected start: January 2024.

Please quote the reference: SciEng-ZM-2023-surface-waves

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