PhD in Development of representative methods to predict contamination from explosive materials in the environment

The main purpose of the PhD is to develop an efficient and standardised approach to predict the fate and transport of explosive contaminants in soil and groundwater. This would enable new and proposed materials to be tested at an accelerated rate before they are brought into production. This will be of benefit to research and industry sectors involved with manufacture and processing of explosives that have a responsibility to manage environmental impact. The PhD will be sponsored by EPSRC/ BAE Systems and is a full time 3 year project with a fully funded bursary and stipend

The project will focus on the design and development of representative experimental methods to predict the fate and transport of new insensitive high explosives in the environment. Explosive contamination from manufacturing, processing and use of explosives is an emerging problem in many countries and requires remediation and mitigation. With increasingly stringent environmental legislation the focus for many industries has to be to prevent environmental contamination. Therefore, by good environmental management and a good understanding of the behaviour insensitive high explosives in the environment it will be easier to assess their impacts. The focus on IHE explosives will ensure the output will directly support the application of these materials across the BAE Systems product range, and their introduction into service with the UK MOD.

Cranfield Defence and Security (CDS) provides unique educational opportunities to the defence and security sectors of both public and private sector organisations.

Based at the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham in Oxfordshire, CDS is the academic provider to the UK Ministry of Defence for all postgraduate education at the Defence Academy College of Management and Technology and training in engineering, science, acquisition, management and leadership.

The PhD opportunity is in the Environmental Science Group (ESG), which is part of the Life Assessment Group in CDS. The ESG is principally interested in the fate and transport of insensitive high explosives in the environment which includes their dissolution and degradation. A key aim is to design experiments representative of real environments which has included creating artificial climates in the lab, making use of the natural environment, setting up experiments outdoorsand isolating specific environmental variables e.g. building soil columns to investigate transport through soil

There is a wide range of research in the open domain stating that explosives and other hazardous materials have been tested for their contamination and toxicity potential in the environment. However, it is not always clear what experimental methods have been used or why particular techniques were chosen. This raises a question as to whether these methods are representative of the real environment, and even if they are reliable and robust. The proposed PhD project will develop vigorous, standardised tools to assess the fate and transport of explosives and hazardous materials in soil and groundwater. In addition, the methods will be validated using insensitive high explosives and their degradation products thereby providing essential information on the behaviour of these materials in the environment