12th OR Research Student Award

18th June 2014

University College London

We reverted this year to a 1-day format for the Osborne Reynolds Research Student Award, with a separate UK Industry Day for Flow, Turbulence and Combustion (FTAC) to be held later in the year (15th July 2014, CFMS – Bristol). Facilities for the award day were kindly provided by University College London. The Osborne Reynolds Research Student Award was again a tremendous success: as with previous years, in addition to the finalists’ presentations, the audience was treated to two superb invited speakers.

Oliver Buxton, a previous finalist of the Osborne Reynolds Research Student Award and winner of the da Vinci award presented a summary of his award-winning research, and description of his recent work using laser diagnostics to observe fine-scale turbulence in both compressible and incompressible flows.

The finalists of this year’s Osborne Reynolds Research Student Award were:
 Duncan Hewitt (DAMTP, University of Cambridge) “High Rayleigh number convection in porous media.”
 Finn Box (University of Manchester) “Spheres and swimmers in a Stokes flow.”
 Georgios Rigas (Imperial College London) “Symmetries and Stochastic Dynamics of Turbulent Wakes.”
 Giulio Ghirardo (CUED, University of Cambridge) “Standing and spinning waves in axisymmetric combustion chambers: Fundamental mechanisms of stability.”
 Joanna Brunker (University College London) “Photo-acoustic Doppler velocity measurements using time-domain cross-correlation.”
 Rafael Gomes Fernandes (Imperial College London) “The inverse energy cascade in a 3D turbulent flow.”

The quality of the work presented was again extremely high, and the deliveries were engaging and well prepared. After some deliberation, the panel awarded the medals to Joanna Brunker - University College London (Gold), Duncan Hewitt - University of Cambridge (Silver) and Rafael Gomes Fernandes - Imperial College London (Bronze). Professor Tony Hutton kindly made the presentations.

Osborne Reynolds Day 2014 – Finalists
Duncan Hewitt (University of Cambridge, Silver), Rafael Gomes Fernandes (Imperial College London, Bronze), Joanna Brunker (University College London, Gold), Professor Lord Julian Hunt (UCL), Guilio Ghirardo (University Cambridge), Georgios Rigas (Imperial College London), Finn Box (University of Manchester).

Our keynote speaker Professor Lord Julian Hunt is the Emeritus Professor of Climate Modelling within the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London, having held numerous prestigious offices within the FTAC community, including Director General of the Met Office and Professor of Fluid Mechanics at Cambridge University. Prof Hunt was the founding Secretary General of ERCOFTAC in 1988.
Professor Hunt gave an insightful presentation on the use of new research in turbulent flows in industry and environmental technology. Following a description of some non-ergodic flows including ice cream and hot soup, Professor Hunt outlined the role of interfacial layers within turbulent flow in protecting small-scale vortices. Noting that such interfaces are actually sharpened when impacted by the smaller eddies; the conceptual model of a “spaghetti sandwich” was used as an alternative to conventional representation of turbulent structures. Professor Hunt made the point that apparently blurred interfaces are actually fluctuating sharp interfaces. This fundamental work has a wide range of applications, including environmental science, civil and aerospace engineering.

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UK Industry Day “Off-body Flow”

15th July 2014

Centre for Modelling and Simulation (CFMS)

This year we held the UK Industry Day at the Centre for Modelling and Simulation (CFMS) in Bristol. The topic this year was “Off-body Flow” - intended to be relevant to a broad range of industrial sectors, and offer academic researchers an opportunity to showcase the latest in technology.
Tony Hutton provided a brief introduction to ERCOFTAC, and the various activities already underway. The industrial presentations were cross-sector, including Aerospace, Automotive, Civil and Renewable Energy:
 Steve Walker (Arup) "Modelling turbulent flows around large structures"
 Dan Clark / David Massegur (Williams F1) "Importance of CFD modelling for complex flow features in F1"
 Jon Woodcock (DNV-GL) "Turbine wake simulation"
 Tony Hutton (Airbus) "Aerodynamic simulation of aerospace industrial challenges at off-design conditions: Establishing the state of the art"
The academic speakers provided perspectives on developments for very challenging simulation tasks, and the manipulation of turbulent wakes:
 Christos Vassilicos (Imperial College) "Wakes of simply designed complex structures"
 Peter Vincent (Imperial College) "High-Order Accurate Simulations using Many-Core Platforms"
 Paul Tucker (Cambridge) "The potential for eddy resolving simulations in industry"
 Raf Theunissen (University of Bristol) "The use of porous discs in large wind farm layout optimisation using wind tunnels"
We were delighted to have presentations from CFD software providers:
 Aleksey Gerasimov (ANSYS) "Scale-Resolving Simulations in ANSYS CFD: Flavours and Examples"
 Hrvoje Jasak (Wikki Ltd) "OpenFOAM"

As with previous years, we were pleased to have representation and presentations from the EPSRC and the Technology Strategy Board
 Nicolas Guernion (EPSRC, Engineering Lead) "EPSRC"
 Lynne McGregor (Technology Strategy Board) "Support Available from the Technology Strategy Board"
Following the event, we collected feedback from all attendees via an online survey. We will maintain the format for next year, and use the (more detailed) attendee feedback to determine a suitable topic for consideration.
In addition, the EPSRC and TSB have kindly offered to help promote the event in future.

David Standingford
Zenotech Ltd
ERCOFTAC UKPC