Fully Funded Scholarship 2020, Swansea University, UK

This scholarship is funded by the EPSRC DTP.

Start date: October 2020

Subject areas: Engineering, Physics

Project description: 

Applicants are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship to explore how shear thickening fluid behaviour leads to complex flow instabilities and pattern formation. You will join a vibrant, multi-disciplinary team at the Complex Flow Lab at College of Engineering, Swansea University, and work in close collaboration with leading scientists in our group and abroad.

Shear thickening fluids display an increase in viscosity with applied stress. In the extreme, the suspension viscosity increases by orders of magnitude, and the material goes from liquid-like to solid-like (Discontinuous Shear Thickening, DST). Shear thickening, and DST in particular, has for decades been a challenging problem in the field of complex fluids and rheology. In our group we focus on experimental studies of flow patterning and fluid instabilities, relating the observations to theoretical models. The PhD project involves designing and setting up custom experiments to study in detail how the ability of the material to transition from liquid to solid (and back again) manifests itself in a range of peculiar flow behaviours which we have seen tantalizing clues of in preliminary experiments. In parallel with the experimental agenda, we will develop a new simulation code (SPH) in close collaboration with Professor Marco Ellero at the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics in Spain. The simulation code will be benchmarked against the rich set of experimental results obtained in the Complex Flow Lab.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and capable individual who will be able to take on both the practical challenges associated with the experimental work and the theoretical work.

Project supervisors: Dr Bjornar Sandnes, Professor Marco Ellero