Thermal Energy Group

Research in thermal energy in 天发娱乐棋牌_天发娱乐APP-官网|下载 dates back to the 19th century and this work has since inspired numerous theoretical, experimental and computational studies.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, thermal energy research has never been more relevant to the wellbeing and sustainability of humankind. Combustion, for example, still meets over 80 per cent of human needs for energy and will remain a dominant mode of energy conversion for the foreseeable future. Yet global climate change caused by combustion and the non-renewable nature of fossil fuels set the twin challenges of maximising energy efficiency and minimizing CO2 and other emissions, which remain as one of the most difficult scientific and engineering problems.

The study of thermal energy is fundamental to understanding numerous energy conversion processes in industry, biosystems and nature. Fundamental subjects like thermodynamics, heat transfer and thermal fluids also serve as the underpinning science for many other energy technologies such as fuel cells and solar thermal systems. A wide range of topics are pursued in the thermal energy laboratory that address these pressing issues of energy, sustainability, security, social and environmental impact.

Current research areas

Thermofluids engineering fundamentals investigating:

fluid dynamics and turbulence
multiphase flow
biofluid dynamics
thermodynamics
premixed combustion
non-premixed combustion
partially premixed combustion

Thermal energy technologies investigating:

clean combustion technologies
carbon capture and storage
combustion control and optimization
low- or zero-emission propulsion technologies
internal combustion engines
gas turbines
renewable fuels
hydrogen-based propulsion technologies
hybrid combustion - fuel cells energy technologies

Multiscale, multiphysics modelling and simulation investigating:

direct numerical simulation (DNS)
large eddy simulation (LES)
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)
molecular dynamics simulation (MDS)
direct simulation Monte Carlo simulation (DSMC)
Lattice Boltzmann simulation (LBS)
multi-scale modelling (MSM)
multi-physics modelling (MPM)
hybrid methods

Nanoscale and microscale thermofluids focused on:

fuel cell modelling
microfluidics
microscale and mesoscale combustors
thermofluids in MEMS and NEMS

Environmental impact and safety in relation to:

modelling of pollutant dispersion
pollutant mitigation technologies
detonation and explosion
fire and fire control
computational aeroacoustics

Collaboration

Since 2006 the group has been part of the UK Consortium on Computational Combustion for Engineering Applications and the UK Turbulence Consortium .? Through these consortiums the group has collaborated with colleagues from several different universities, and had access to substantial computing resources on national teraflop computers HPCx and HECToR.