iCASE Award Industrial Contribution BT

Decrease Jet-Installation Noise (DJINN)

The motivation of DJINN is to work on jet-wing interaction noise for representative engine, pylon and wing configurations at relevant flight conditions. The ambition of the QMUL team is to work with the leading UK and EU universities and aerospace companies in order to maintain industrial and economical leadership in the highly competitive global aviation market. https://djinn.online/

CAD-based wing optimisation for the XRF1 - CASE studentship Airbus

The analysis of aircraft wings is highly multi-disciplinary including e.g. aerodynamic loads as well as structural weight. The large number of parameters that are needed to describe an optimal design requires gradient-based optimisation methods. The unique feature of the project is the first use of a gradient-enabled CAD system in aircraft design which was developed in a preceding project.

FlexNanoFlow

2D nanomaterials hold immense technological promise thanks to extraordinary intrinsic properties such as ultra-high conductivity, strength and unusual semiconducting properties. Our understanding of how these extremely thin and flexible objects are processed in flow is however inadequate, and this is hindering progress towards true market applications. When processed in liquid ...

JINA: Jet Installation Noise Abatement

One of the major aeroacoustical challenges of modern aircraft is the so-called "jet installation effect" due to the interaction of the jet hydrodynamic field with the airframe. The JINA project aims to address this challenge by bringing together expertise in experimental and computational aeroacoustics as well as design optimisation.

Engineering X Pandemic Preparedness

Team: UK Principal Investigator: Dr Eldad Avital Partners: India – VIT Chenai Prof Nithya Venkatesan, IIT Madras Prof Abdus Samad Consultant: Emeritus Prof Clive Beggs, Leeds Beckett Researchers: QMUL PhD student: Yang Chen QMUL MEng team: Lidia Garcia, Muneeb Khawar, Ayman Mohammed, Maham Sandhu, Taylor Smith, Dena Rahman India research assistants: Rishav Raj, Mahesh Ravindra, Saket Kapse We develop a stand alone air disinfection device capable of inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus (Covid-19) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis (TB)). The devise utilises a novel particle separation technology, which boosts the air disinfection capabilities of an ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light source, allowing much larger quantities of air to be purified than would normally be the case. If successful, the device will represent a step-change on current air disinfection technologies and should prove helpful in combating the transmission of airborne (aerosol) diseases such as Covid-19 and TB within buildings. Light in the UV-C region produces photons that are absorbed by nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) to form dimers (fused base pairs) that impair replication of pathogenic viruses and bacteria [1], greatly reducing their ability cause infection. It has been shown that UV-C light can inactivate coronaviruses and thus there is good reason to believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be susceptible to UV irradiation [2]. Similarly, it has been shown that TB can be inactivated using UV-C light [3]. Both TB and Covid-19 are infectious diseases that are transmitted via aerosolised respiratory droplets produced indoors. As such, UV-C air disinfection devices have great potential to inhibit the spread of these diseases in room spaces if used appropriately. However, such devices are limited by the small air flow rate that they can handle. This is because pathogenic microbes often require high UV irradiation doses, with the result that the air velocity through such devices needs to be very low, meaning that they can only disinfect small amounts of air. However, by utilising particle separation it is possible to greatly enhance the irradiation capabilities of the device, thus allowing much larger quantities of air to be disinfected. [1] Beggs CB (2002). A quantitative method for evaluating the photoreactivation of ultraviolet damaged microorganisms. Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences. 2002. 1: 431-437, https://doi.org/10.1039/B202801H [2] Beggs CB, Avital EJ (2020). Upper-room ultraviolet air disinfection might help to reduce COVID-19 transmission in buildings: a feasibility study. PeerJ 8:e10196, https://peerj.com/articles/10196/ [3] Escombe AR, et al (2009). Upper-room ultraviolet light and negative air ionization to prevent tuberculosis transmission. PLoS Med 6 (3), e1000043, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000043

Wind and water turbines: Simulation of unsteady aerodynamic forces and theoretical modelling

High fidelity flow-structural dynamics simulations of wind and water turbines will be pursued using advanced computing clusters and complemented by wind tunnel tests. The results will be analysed and used to derive new fast models that will support future development of new renewable energy devices extracting kinetic energy from the wind and water flows.

Simulation of unsteady aerodynamic forces and theoretical modelling