Background to the Project
Cavitation generation has been much of a mystery for more than a century. A core unresolved challenge is how bubble growth subject to acoustic forcing occurs over millions of cycles of oscillation, which cannot be simulated by any CFD packages.
Cavitation is the formation and the subsequent dynamics of bubbles in a liquid or in a tissue, typically induced by sound or high-speed flows. Such bubbles are capable of yielding powerful shock waves, high-speed jets and extreme heating, which are detrimental in numerous applications. These include ship propellers, hydraulic turbines or artificial heart valves, where cavitation causes erosion, vibrations, and noise. More recently, cavitation has been applied for ultrasound cleaning, sonochemistry, ultrasonic lithotripsy to remove kidney stones or blood clots, ultrasonic liposuction to remove excessive fat, targeted drug delivery to cells with encapsulated microbubbles, and the opening of the highly selective blood-brain barrier through microbubbles subject to ultrasound.
Birmingham bubble group has been established for more than 30 years and is recognised as a world leader in the mathematics of bubbles. In particular we have a tractable and accurate mathematical model for simulating the growth of bubbles for millions of oscillations subject to acoustic waves. This development is based on the state-of-the-art techniques including multiscale perturbation, matched expansions and transform theory. The approach has been well demonstrated by the excellent agreement of the model with experiments.
The PhD student will develop the mathematical model for cavitation generation. The possible developments include modelling of the effects of heat transfer, surfactants, liquid properties and transient ambient pressure to cavitation generation. He/she will model, simulate and analyse the detailed process of cavitation generation from cavitation nuclei to microbubbles. The objectives are to find the mechanisms and to characterize cavitation generation in terms of various parameters. He/she will optimize the use of acoustic cavitation in various applications with the capabilities developed.
Person Specification
Applicants should have first-class MSci degree or distinguished MSc degree in Applied Mathematics, Physics, Civil or Mechanical Engineering, or related subjects.
Applicants should have a strong education background in partial differential equations, numerical methods and fluid mechanics.
How to Apply
If you wish to be considered for a studentship, you should complete earlier an online application.
Please follow the information and step-by-step guide on our main how to apply page
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