16th ERCOFTAC Osborne Reynolds Day

Date: 03/09/2018

Location: The University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Organiser: The University of Manchester

Coordinators: Dr Imran Afgan, Prof Michael Leschziner


The University of Manchester will once again be playing host to the prestigious ERCOFTAC Osborne Reynolds Day in 2018.

These competitions offer prestigious awards that celebrate the quality of students and graduates who have been pursuing doctoral‐level research across the broad domain of fluid mechanics including turbulence, multi‐phase, stratified and free‐surface flows, convective transport processes, combustion and acoustics. Entries are welcome from schools of engineering, physics, mathematics or environmental sciences. PhD students or recent graduates from all UK universities are eligible to enter whether or not their host university is a member of ERCOFTAC.

Entry to both competitions is open to:

  • Current PhD‐registered students at a UK university
  • Doctoral graduates from a UK university who graduated since June 2017


How to enter the competition

To enter the competitions a 3-page summary should be submitted by the candidates individually and should include:

  • Title of the work
  • Name, address and affiliation, email address, telephone number
  • Name of supervisor(s)
  • List of 5 keywords characterising the work
  • Popularised description of the work, explaining the main problem and the main result in Plain English (max ½ page)
  • List of up to 5 selected publications and indication of total output volume
  • Scientific summary of objectives, research route, methodology, the main results and achievements, and if possible a graphical representation. Particular emphasis should be given to novelty and originality of the findings and their applicability.
  • Please download the poster pitch presentation and poster layout documents.

All submissions should be sent directly to


How to register for the event

Registration for the event is free via the Eventbrite portal: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/16th-osborne-reynolds-day-competition-tickets-42861883046


Further Details of Applications

Process Entrants should indicate whether they are candidates for the Oral‐Presentation Competition, the Poster Competition, or both – in order of preference (though no entrant will be selected for both competitions).

  • For the Oral Competition, up to seven finalists will present their research. The winner will receive the Osborne Reynolds Prize of £500 with the second and third‐placed finalists receiving £200 and £100 respectively. Three finalists will be selected as the UK entrants for the Europe‐wide 2018 ERCOFTAC da Vinci Award held later in the year.
  • For the Poster Competition, up to 25 finalists will be chosen who will prepare A0 posters that will be viewed by those attending the event during the buffet‐lunch and refreshment breaks. Those presenting the best three posters will each receive £100. All poster finalists will be required to do a 1 min poster pitch (maximum of 2 slides-to be emailed to the event organizers well in advance) in addition to presenting their posters in person. Those chosen to present posters must attend the event in person to respond to questions. Guidelines for the poster pitch presentation and the poster layout can be found here.
  • All finalists receive a certificate of participation in Osborne Reynolds Day 2018.
  • It is expected that most presenters will, through their PhD project account or other sources, be able to recover their travel costs. Where this is not possible ERCOFTAC‐UK has made a limited fund available to help with these expenses for those whose participation necessitates a round‐trip journey of more than 100 miles. Once the submission has been accepted for inclusion in Osborne Reynolds Day, applications may be made to Prof. Matthew Juniper, mpj1001@cam.ac.uk, briefly setting out the case for travel support.


Other Highlights of Osborne Reynolds Day

  • Prof. Spencer Sherwin, Professor of Computational Fluid Mechanics, Imperial College London. Title of talk “Understanding the Properties of Spectral/Hp Element Methods for use in Implicit Large Eddy Simulation”
  • Prof. Andy W. Woods. Head of BP Institute, University of Cambridge, UK. Title of talk “Turbulent Mixing in Buoyancy Driven”

At the end‐of‐event a reception event will also be held to provide an opportunity to examine Osborne Reynolds’ artefacts, photographs, paper reviews and other correspondence.

Further enquiries can be sent to imran.afgan@manchester.ac.uk. Please note further details and registration procedures for the event (for both competitors and audience members) will be announced at a later date.

Event website