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20072025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and current Course Director for Mathematics. Following the completion of my PhD, I undertook postdoctoral Research Associate roles at Cardiff University (2007-2008), University of Western Australia (2008-2011), and Imperial College London (ICL, 2011-2017) and a Lecturer role at Monash University (2017-2019). During 2013 I undertook a role as Aerodynamic Researcher at Airbus Group Innovations (AGI).

My research interests are in the field of fluid mechanics, particularly in laminar-turbulent transition processes.

Research interests

Rotating flows

The flow that develops on a rotating disc displays many of the fluid dynamic mechanisms that trigger laminar-turbulent transition on a swept wing. My research has brought about new insights into the linear stability characteristics of the rotating disc boundary layer and shown that the flow is globally unstable.

Unsteady flows

The Stokes layer is the archetype unsteady flow used to describe blood flow in the heart and air flow in the lungs. My research has revealed a new form of disturbance development, a so-called family-tree structure. Additionally, my research has demonstrated that perturbing the Stokes layer by as little as 1% can excite unstable behaviour at flow conditions that match experimental observations.

Receptivity

Receptivity describes the initial stage of the laminar turbulent transition process, whereby environmental disturbances transform into perturbations within the boundary layer. Such environmental disturbances can include free-stream noise, vortex structures and surface roughness. Utilising an adjoint based approach, I have developed methods for instantaneously predicting the initial amplitude of disturbances to randomly distributed surface roughness, and optimising parameter settings for laminar flow control.

Modelling surface variations

Surface deformations (gaps, bumps and steps) and roughness occur on the surfaces of aeroplane wings. My research at ICL and AGI led to the development of a new computational tool, RANS Extracted Boundary Layer or REBL, which permitted the analysis of separated flow systems engineered by surface variations that could not otherwise be investigated by the academic/industrial partners.

Research capabilities

I have research expertise in the following areas:

  • Boundary layer stability
  • Receptivity processes
  • Steady and unsteady flows
  • Rotating flows
  • Surface deformations
  • Optimising flow control

Research student supervision

Seeking excellent students with a strong background in mathematical modelling, to undertake research in laminar-turbulent transition.

Possible project topics

  • Laminar flow control via the right sort of roughness
  • Flow behaviour in non-Newtonian fluids past rotating bodies

Current supervision

  • Tasawar Iqbal, The hydrodynamic principles of microscopic filter feeding (Associate supervisor 2022-2025)
  • Zahid Amin (Associate supervisor 2023-2025)
  • Maha Alsharani (based at the University of Leicester, UK), The effect of surface roughness on travelling wave instabilities in the rotating-disc boundary layer (Co-supervisor 2021-2025)
  • Sara Almammary (based at the University of Leicester, UK), The effect of compliant panels on linear disturbance development in the rotating-disc boundary layer (Co-supervisor 2021-2025)

Past supervision

  • Silvia Ceccacci, Control of boundary-layer separation using surface roughness (Principal supervisor 2021-2023), Awarded June 2023
  • Muhammad Nisar, Absolute and convective instabilities of developing jets (Principal supervisor 2021-2024), Awarded June 2024

Teaching

Designed, convened and lectured the following units. (Units marked * currently teaching.)

  • MATH1010* Calculus & Linear Algebra I
  • MATH2110* Mathematical Modelling and Differential Equations
  • MATH3902 Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos
  • MATH3905* Methods for Mathematical Computation
  • MATH7905* MRes: Fluid Dynamics

Education/Academic qualification

Mathematics, PhD, Numerical simulations of disturbance development in rotating boundary layers, Cardiff University

20032007

Award Date: 12 Dec 2007

Mathematics, BSc (Hons), Cardiff University

20002003

Award Date: 30 Jun 2003

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