2023 Fully Funded Civil Engineering PhD Scholarship by UK Atomic Weapons Establishment (UKAWE) and Swansea University in UK

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Application Deadline: January 27, 2023.

This PhD scholarship is fully funded, offered by Swansea University. It is funded by UK Atomic Weapons Establishment (UKAWE) and Swansea University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering.  Its a great opportunity for students who want to take their research career to the next level.

Project Description:

There is a wealth of Industrial applications which require the use of computer models to understand the nature and behaviour of shock waves in solids caused by intense short-duration disturbances, such as sudden contact-impact loading and/or when a material is exposed to fast temperature changes. For instance, the mechanisms of material failure under a ballistic-shock are crucial in the design of 3D printed elastomer multi-materials, which are of interest to UKAWE.

Current shock-physics simulation codes, which largely rely on industry-optimised Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based methods, are capable of handling shocks across the entire domain of CFD applications. However, the success of this methodological approach has not been replicated in other fields of science, such as large strain solid dynamics, and its coupling with other physics and with novel materials.

Building upon very recent work made by the supervisory team, this project will investigate a new computational framework using a novel Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formalism written in the form of a system of first-order conservation laws. The resulting conservation-type ALE formulation, which displays striking similarities to that used by the CFD community, has inspired the investigators to adopt conventional CFD algorithms in the novel context of Computational Solid Dynamics. One key contribution of this work is that the physical deformation gradient can be obtained via its multiplicative decomposition into two auxiliary deformation gradient tensors, both computed via additional first-order conservation laws. Crucially, the new ALE conservative formulation will be shown to degenerate into Lagrangian and Eulerian mixed based systems of conservation laws. A Finite Volume/Discontinuous Galerkin/Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics algorithm with Riemann based upwinding stabilisation will be used for the spatial discretisation, exploiting in-house software.

The recruited PhD candidate will become a member of an active research group working on the development and application of cutting edge computational techniques for large strain solid dynamics, dynamic fracture/contact  and computational multi-physics.

Degree Level:

Civil Engineering Fully Funded Ukawe and Swansea PhD Scholarship 2023 is available to undertake PhD level programs at Swansea University.

Available Subjects:

Following subject are available to study under this scholarship program.

  • Computational Mathematics
  • Engineering Stimulation

Scholarship Benefits:

This scholarship covers the full cost of UK tuition fees and an annual stipend of £17,668.

Additional research expenses will also be available.

Eligible Nationalities:

This scholarship is open only to applicants holding a UK passport.

Eligibility Criteria:

Candidates must normally hold an undergraduate degree at 2.1 level (or Non-UK equivalent as defined by Swansea University) in Engineering or similar relevant science discipline. See ‘country specific information for European and international applicants (available at the bottom of the page)’.

English Language requirements: If applicable – IELTS 6.5 overall (with at least 5.5 in each individual component) or Swansea recognised equivalent. Details on the Swansea University English Language entry policy can be found here.

Due to funding restrictions, this scholarship is open only to applicants holding a UK passport.

NB: If you are holding a non-UK degree, please see Swansea University degree comparisons to find out if you meet the eligibility. 

Visit the official website for details and application