On the evaluation of high temperature creep responses of structures

The Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering is seeking an outstanding and committed graduate to undertake research leading to the award of a PhD from the University of Strathclyde.

In order to meet criteria for clean and sustainable energy production, it is essential for power generation to increase efficiency while simultaneously decrease levels of chemical emissions and pollutants. The efficiency of power generation can be significantly improved by increasing the operating temperature, leading to reduced fuel consumption and lower levels of harmful emissions. Higher operating temperatures, alongside the competing need to extend the life of existing power plant, mean that the improvement of the performance of power plant component under high temperature creep condition is crucial for UK to meet its long-term energy and environmental targets.

The aim of this project is to investigate and develop robust and accurate numerical method for the evaluation of high temperature creep response of structures. The project will consider various creep material laws for practical engineering applications. The objective is also focused on the implementation of the developed method into the Abaqus FE software through user subroutines using Fortran coding and/or the Python scripting language. The measurable objectives for this project are: 1) to understand and investigate high temperature creep behaviour of materials and structures, in particular, the correlation of creep, stress relaxation and elastic-follow up; 2) to investigate, apply and develop efficient but accurate creep analysis method for practical creep material models, including both the time hardening and strain hardening creep models, and implement the creep analysis method into Abaqus through user subroutines; 3)To investigate convergence issues and formulate effective numerical schemes to enhance computational performance, including efficiency and stability; 4) To validate the new numerical technique against existing experimental and analytical data, and apply the creep analysis method on a range of practical components.

Your academic supervisors will be Dr Haofeng Chen ([Email Address Removed]) and Prof James Boyle ([Email Address Removed]) of the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department. The research team at Strathclyde (www.strath.ac.uk/mae) is internationally recognised for research in this area and the successful applicant will be encouraged to collaborate with team members and industrial partners (www.thelmm.co.uk).

If you wish to apply please email a covering letter, full Curriculum Vitae and the names and contact details of at least two academic referees to BOTH [Email Address Removed] and [Email Address Removed].

Project will start on 1st October 2013