Differential Geometry Parameterisation for Aircraft Aerodynamic Optimisation

Two PhD Studentships on Aerodynamic Optimisation with Airbus

Two PhD studentships are available immediately in the Aerodynamics Research Group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield. The projects are funded partially by Airbus and partially by UK government.

The external shape design of Airbus aircraft is crucial for continuing progress in producing more efficient passenger aircraft. This research project will be focused on new techniques for representing the geometry for feeding into an adjoint based optimisation process to create more powerful aerodynamic design processes.
Adjoint techniques have emerged over recent years as a powerful way of rapidly calculating derivatives, with the required computational effort independent of the dimensionality of the design space. However, these powerful techniques have not been widely exploited within industry. One of the reasons for this is that for application on real design challenges, the full optimisation chain has to be constructed in differential form, involving each stage from geometry to post-processing, including mesh perturbation and flow solution. This research project will be focused on new techniques relating to the geometry aspect.

The projects also involve a significant proportion of time spent at Airbus' research facilities.

Further Information

The candidate should be interested in computational aerodynamics (CFD) with a good university degree (equivalent to UK first class or 2.i or an MSc with a grade of at least 70%) in engineering, physics, maths or computer science disciplines.

The studentship is available immediately and covers the tuition fees as well as a stipend of £15,000 per year tax free. Only UK or EU citizens are eligible for these studentships.

For an informal discussion on the project please email Professor Ning Qin: n.qin@sheffield.ac.uk

To apply, please use our standard on-line PhD application form, and indicate on your form that you are replying to this advert.