The University of Sheffield
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Professor Ning Qin

BSc, MEng, PhD, AFAIAA, FRAeS

Professor Ning Qin

Professor of Aerodynamics

Head of Thermofluids Group
MEng Course Tutor (Year 3 & 4)

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
UK

Telephone: +44(0)114 222 7718
Fax: +44(0)114 222 7890

email : n.qin@sheffield.ac.uk

 Profile

With a PhD degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Glasgow, Ning Qin started his Aerodynamics/CFD research career working as a Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow. He conducted research in the area of predicting hypersonic heating (in the HOTOL spaceplane programme), investigating Navier-Stokes methods for high speed flows, developing Newton-like implicit methods for CFD and parallel computing on the Daresbury's i860 Hypercube, an early national parallel computing system.

He moved to Cranfield University College of Aeronautics in 1994 and was appointed to the Chair of Computational Aerodynamics in 1999. At Cranfield, he established the Center for Computational Aerodynamics, with a wide range of funded research activities. 

In 2003, he was appointed to a Chair of Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics at the University of Sheffield, heading the Aerodynamics and Thermo-Fluids Group.

Professor Qin is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was awarded the RAeS Hafner Prize on VTOL Technology in 2000. He is an Associate Editor or on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals.

He is involved in a wide range of research and consultancy activities for Aerodynamic/CFD research and applications. He has published over 160 journal and conference papers in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics. His recent research interests include: flow control, aerodynamic and multi-disciplinary optimization; micro-fluidic simulations; helicopter unsteady aerodynamics; supersonic and hypersonic vortical flows and interactions; transonic flutter boundary prediction, and algorithm development for turbulence simulation. He obtained research funding from research councils and industries including EPSRC, Leverhulme Trust, EU, DERA(QinetiQ), BAE Systems, Westland Helicopters Ltd, Airbus, Rolls Royce and Aircraft Research Associates.

Areas of Research

The Aerodynamics Research Group's interest is in the development and application of computational aerodynamic tools to a wide range of industrial problems in aerospace, automotive, and environmental industries. These advanced tools provide in-depth analyses and design optimisation for engineering products, such as aircraft wing drag reduction, racing car down force enhancement, and wind turbine blade efficiency improvement.

The aerodynamic analysis and design tools vary from very fast panel methods to popular commercial CFD packages, from the most advanced adjoint method for optimisation (adj-MERLIN) to the detached eddy simulation software (DGDES) for massively separated turbulent flows, developed within the group.

Current projects include: wake vortex aircraft interactions for aviation safety, shock control for drag reduction, control bump optimisation for transonic wing performance, dynamic grid DES for synthetic jets flow control, and adaptive meshing techniques. 

The Aerodynamics Research Group is equipped with a number of CFD pre- and post-processing packages for grid generation and flow visualisation, two Linux parallel computing clusters, and two low speed wind tunnels for experimental aerodynamic research and CFD validation.

Teaching

Books

  • beck S, blakey S, chin S, Nicolleau FCGA & qin N (2006) The little book of thermofluids..

Journal articles

Conferences

  • Qin N & Harris M (2013) Using the Medial Axis to Represent Complex Flow Structures for Flow Feature-Aligned Mesh Generation. AIAA Paper 2013-0150
  • Zhu F & Qin N (2012) Development of CST Geometric Parameterisation Method for an Entire Transport Aircraft
  • Ahmed M & Qin N (2012) Investigation of the flow asymmetry around axi-symmetric spiked blunt bodies at hypersonic speeds
  • Chen ZJ & Qin N (2012) Propeller Effects on Low Reynolds Number Aerodynamics
  • Qin N, Wang Y, Carnie G & Shahpar S (2011) Zipper layer method. Proceedings of the 20th International Meshing Roundtable, IMR 2011, 587-599.
  • Carnie G, Wang Y, Qin N & Shahpar S (2011) Design optimisation of casing grooves using the zipper layer meshing method. Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo, 7(PARTS A, B, AND C), 1163-1174.
  • Lu Q, Chen J, Cheng J, Qin N & Danao LAM (2011) Study of CFD simulation of a 3-D wind turbine. ICMREE2011 - Proceedings 2011 International Conference on Materials for Renewable Energy and Environment, 1, 596-600.
  • Zheng HW, Nicolleau FCGA & Qin N (2010) Assessment of des on the flow after a snow-flake orifice. Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design, 111, 157-165.
  • De Feo DM, Qin N & Birch TJ (2010) A MUSCL and WENO - PNS approach for vortex dominated flowfields. 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
  • Zheng HW, Qin N & Shu C (2010) Three dimensional adaptive method for compressible multi-fluids flows. 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
  • Ahmed MYM & Qin N (2010) Metamodels for aerothermodynamic design optimization of hypersonic spiked blunt bodies. 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
  • Boller C, Kuo CM & Qin N (2009) Biologically Inspired Shape Changing Aerodynamic Profiles and their Effect on Flight Performance of Future Aircraft. EMBODING INTELLIGENCE IN STRUCTURES AND INTEGRATED SYSTEMS, 56, 534-544.
  • Zheng HW, Nicolleau FCGA & Qin N (2009) Detached Eddy Simulation of Turbulence Flows in a Pipe with Fractal Shape Orifices. ADVANCES IN TURBULENCE XII - PROCEEDINGS OF THE 12TH EUROMECH EUROPEAN TURBULENCE CONFERENCE, 132, 947-948.
  • Qin N, Carnie G, LeMoigne A, Liu X & Shahpar S (2009) Buffer layer method for linking two non-matching multi-block structured grids. 47th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
  • Xia H & Qin N (2008) DES applied to an isolated synthetic jet flow. ADVANCES IN HYBRID RANS-LES MODELLING, 252-260.
  • Carniea G & Qin N (2008) Fluid-structure interaction of HALE wing configuration with an efficient moving grid method. 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
  • Edwards J, Durrani N, Howell R & Qin N (2008) Wind tunnel and numerical study of a small vertical axis wind turbine. 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
  • Durrani N & Qin N (2008) Numerical simulation of flexible flapping airfoil propulsion using dynamic mesh at low reynolds numbers. 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
  • Hamada K, Smith T, Durrani N, Qin N & Howell R (2008) Unsteady flow simulation and dynamic stall around vertical axis wind turbine blades. 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
  • Boller C, Kuo CM & Qin N (2007) Approaching morphing wing concepts on the basis of micro aerial vehicles - art. no. 65270K. Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2007, 6527, K5270-K5270.
  • Qin N, Wong WS & Le Moigne A (2007) Adjoint-based optimisation of a blended wing body aircraft with shock control bumps. Collection of Technical Papers - 45th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 1, 531-543.
  • Boller C, Kuo C-M & Qin N (2007) Approaching morphing wing concepts on the basis of micro aerial vehicles. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 6527
  • Xia H & Qin N (2006) Comparison of unsteady laminar and des solutions of synthetic jet flow. Collection of Technical Papers - AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, 2, 878-888.
  • Le Moigne A & Qin N (2006) LES with numerical dissipation for aircraft wake vortices. Collection of Technical Papers - 44th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 20, 15245-15257.
  • Spence GT, Le Moigne A, Qin N & Allerton DJ (2005) Real-time model of wake vortices based on large eddy simulation datasets. Collection of Technical Papers - AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference 2005, 1, 623-636.
  • Zhong B, Shaw ST & Qin N (2005) BILU implicit multiblock euler/navier-stokes simulation for helicopter rotor vortical flow. 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit - Meeting Papers, 2209-2222.
  • Xia H & Qin N (2005) Dynamic grid and unsteady boundary conditions for synthetic jet flow. 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit - Meeting Papers, 4047-4055.
  • Wong WS, Qin N & Sellars N (2005) A numerical study of transonic flow in a wind tunnel over 3D bumps. 43rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit - Meeting Papers, 161-169.
  • Hill JL, Shaw ST & Qin N (2005) Development and application of engineering transition model for rotorcraft aerodynamics. 30th European Rotorcraft Forum, 2005, 143-160.
  • Qin N (2001) Experience with the Osher scheme for applied aerodynamics. GODUNOV METHODS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, 707-715.
  • Qin N, Ludlow DK & Shaw ST (1996) A matrix-free Newton-GMRES method for steady and unsteady Navier-Stokes solutions. COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS '96, 784-790.
  • QIN N, XU X & RICHARDS BE (1993) SFDN ALPHA-GMRES AND SQN ALPHA-GMRES METHODS FOR FAST HIGH-RESOLUTION N-S SIMULATIONS. NUMERICAL METHODS FOR FLUID DYNAMICS 4, 583-592.
  • XU X, QIN N & RICHARDS BE (1993) PARALLELIZING EXPLICIT AND FULLY IMPLICIT NAVIER-STOKES SOLUTIONS FOR COMPRESSIBLE FLOWS. PARALLEL COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS 92, 407-418.
  • Qin N & Coppin J () Adjoint Based Aerodynamic Optimisation of a UCAV. AIAA Paper 2013-0146
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