AACE-AFM-132: Flow Past Long Cylindrical Structures

Currently there is a major collaborative research programme on the safety and efficiency of maritime and offshore structures led by Singapore’s Institute of High Performance Computing, the National University of Singapore, and the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute. This studentship will complement this work, developing numerical fluid dynamics methods for modelling offshore risers and similar structures in both Southampton and Singapore.

Risers are extremely long, relatively thin, metal tubes which are used to raise oil and/or gas from the ocean floor to the surface. They suffer from a phenomenon known as Vortex-Induced-Vibration (VIV) in which the fluctuating loads due to eddies created by the ocean currents past the cylinder provokes vibrational motion of the cylinder. This vibration causes fatigue in the structure, shortening its useful life, and can affect the operational performance of the riser. Reliable numerical methods are needed which can predict the flow past the risers such that designs with good performance and structural properties can be developed. The extreme length of the risers (many hundreds of meters) makes simulating the complete system computationally prohibitive, even using state-of-the-art numerical methods. The student will be involved in developing sophisticated and efficient fluid dynamics models for flows of this type, and performing simulations to validate the methods by comparison with existing experimental and numerical results.

The project will allow the student to spend two (funded) years in Singapore, a dynamic city, situated in a rapidly evolving part of the world. This will be a four year project, with two years spent in Southampton, developing the methods, and two years in Singapore collaborating with scientists at IHPC, validating the methods by comparison with existing experimental and numerical results.

The funding associated with this project is only available for EU/UK students.
Overseas students will need to secure funding from other sources (to cover fees and maintenance costs).


If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Prof Owen Tutty AFM research group, Email: [Email Address Removed], Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 2163.