The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Strathclyde is inviting applications for the following fully funded PhD project, expected to commence in February 2024.
Please note, European/UK students only. If you are interested, please drop your email with CV and motivation letter directly to Dr Sifeng Bi ([Email Address Removed])
Background:
Since increasing incidents of spacecraft/rocket debris landing on earth, even impacting residence areas, space object re-entry has been a significant issue for sustainable space exploration. Re-entries can intuitively be categorised into two categories: Controlled re-entries, where the spacecraft actively determines the time and location of the entry point into the atmosphere, and uncontrolled re-entries, where either the time or the location can no longer be influenced by the spacecraft and has to be described stochastically. Controlled re-entries tend to target remote regions of the Earth's surface to avoid damage to property and human on-ground. Uncontrolled re-entries, in contrast, have a much higher risk of impacting residence regions, and hence it is significant to have a precise prediction of the landing point (or region).
However, a precise prediction of uncontrolled space debris re-entry is still an open and challenging question. This is because, on the one hand, the re-entry prediction is an interdisciplinary simulation integrating structural dynamics, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, and astrodynamics, with huge calculation effort and inevitable modelling errors. On the other hand, uncertainties come from not only numerical modelling but also initial orbital/attitude conditions, atmosphere characteristics, spacecraft material properties, etc. Inappropriate treatment of even a tiny uncertainty at the initial trajectory position would lead to a huge spread of the final landing point.
Overall aim:
This project focuses on the robust and rapid prediction of uncontrolled space object re-entry, under a comprehensive sense of uncertainty treatment. This includes a forward uncertainty propagation and an inverse uncertainty reduction (model updating). The forward uncertainty propagation refers to the investigation of how the various sources of uncertainties (from initial orbital/attitude conditions, atmosphere characteristics, spacecraft material properties, etc.) influence the final landing point (region), based on a mix uncertainty model of both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. The inverse model updating involves the employment of multi-fidelity models, where the fast-but-low-fidelity model will be updated based on the simulation data from high-fidelity model and real-time observations if applicable.
Student experience and training
1. Scientific writing: The student will be trained to prepare reports, conference papers, and articles.
2. Scientific communication: The student will be practised to give presentations regularly in the internal group meetings and external conferences, such that the ability to communicate with different parties will be trained.
3. Internship to ESA (knowledge exchange): This project will include an internship to ESA to identify the practical requirements on an application level and to solve the practical problems with the knowledge he/she gained from the university. The internship will also include the chance to acquire practical observation data to support the model updating work programmes.
Desirable features of the candidates:
Mathematic background (especially probabilistic and statistical approaches)
Engineering mechanics and structural dynamics
Finite element analysis and software skills
Familiar with MATLAB and other programming tools such as C++ or Python.
Keywords:
model updating, uncertainty quantification, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering
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