News

WISE CDT PhD Studentship 2018

17 January 2018

Development of Lattice Boltzmann Method on modelling nearshore waves and sediment transport

Background

In past two decades, there have be seen an increasing development of the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), which is an efficient alternative and mesoscopic method between the molecular dynamics method and the conventional numerical methods. The LBM simulates fluid flows by tracking the evolution of the particle distribution function, and then accumulates the distribution to obtain macroscopic averaged properties, which significantly increases the efficiency in dealing with the non-linear terms in fluid flow and wave equations over the conventional numerical methods. The LBW has been widely applied to the fluid flow and coastal related problems. However, there still exist gaps in applying the LBM to the coastal hydrodynamic and mophodynamic processes under combined the wave and current conditions, particularly in dealing with extreme events and breaking waves, and the resulting morphological evolution.

Aims and Methods

The project aims to develop the LBM further for the coastal waters which can be applied to model the complex coastal hydrodynamics and morphodynamics. The model developments will include the following areas:

  1. Implementing new methodology in LBM by increasing the particle movement directions;
  2. Improving the shock capture in dealing with the breaking waves;
  3. Improving the predictability for mixed sediment transport;
  4. Applying the model to cases under the combined current and wave combined conditions with the presence of breakwater schemes;
  5. Applying the model on the extreme waves with focuses on dealing with breaking waves;
  6. Examining the impact of the breaking waves on sediment transport and morphological evolution.

Candidate

The project would suit a student with 1st or 2.1 degree in Mathematics, Physics and Engineering disciplines and an interest in developing the numerical modelling skills in coastal engineering and the related subjects.

Studentship

This studentship is fully funded by the EPSRC and is four years long, which contains a training element at the University of Exeter in the first year. In the remaining three years, the student will complete the proposed project at Cardiff University. The student will also benefit from the supported 3-month research visit with overseas or UK academic or industrial partners or governmental agencies, summer school, industry day and other social events. The studentship is for EU and UK students only and will start in Sept 2018. For further information on WISE CDT, please visit: http://wisecdt.org/

Supervision

The studentship will be jointly supervised by Professor Shunqi Pan (School of Engineering, Cardiff University), Professor Tim Phillips (School of Mathematics, Cardiff University) and Dr Jianping Meng (Department of Scientific Computing, STFC – Daresbury Laboratory)

Please contact Prof Shunqi Pan (PanS2@cardiff.ac.uk) for any queries.