Available Projects
The project list below helps self-funded and externally sponsored applicants (scholarship) connect with a prospective supervisor.
Applications are welcome from those who can support themselves or have funding already arranged. Such applications will go through the same level of academic assessment. Please see the fee arrangementsLink opens in a new window for PGR students.
Not all particles are spheres: tyre wear, nanoplastics and where air pollution really goes
Air-quality rules describe every particle by one number, its 'aerodynamic diameter', assuming shape does not matter. But the pollution now rising fastest, from brake and tyre wear, microplastics and nanomaterials, is made of flakes, fibres and fragments. You will develop new physics-based tools to predict how particles of any shape move near walls, where they are caught by filters, counted by sensors or deposited in the lung, and map when the one-number picture fails.
Primary supervisor: Duncan Lockerby - Duncan.Lockerby@warwick.ac.uk
Co-supervisor: TBD
Project detail:
Air-quality rules around the world describe every airborne particle by a single number: its 'aerodynamic diameter', the size of a sphere that would fall through air at the same speed. PM2.5 and PM10 limits, filter ratings and the calibration of pollution sensors all rest on it. The hidden assumption is that once you know this one number, a particle's shape does not matter.
For the particles that increasingly dominate our air, that assumption is in doubt. As vehicles electrify and exhaust emissions fall, a growing share of traffic pollution comes from brake and tyre wear (heavier electric vehicles wear their tyres faster), and the new Euro 7 regulations limit brake-wear particles for the first time. These particles are flakes, fibres and jagged fragments, not spheres. The same is true of microplastics and of engineered nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene.
And what matters is where they end up: trapped by a face mask or filter, counted by a sensor, or deposited in the lung. All of these happen in confined spaces, close to walls, where a particle's motion depends on its orientation and its distance from the surface. For particles smaller than a micron there is a further twist: air no longer behaves as a smooth fluid, because the particle is comparable in size to the distance an air molecule travels between collisions. How a non-spherical nanoparticle moves near a wall in this regime has barely been explored.
In this project you will develop fast, physics-based computational tools to predict how particles of any shape move close to walls, across the full range from fluid-like to molecular behaviour, and use them to predict how far particles penetrate filters and narrow channels. You will then map when, and by how much, shape and confinement make the aerodynamic diameter misleading, with direct relevance to filter design, sensor calibration and exposure assessment. There is scope to test your predictions against experiments using Warwick's aerosol-generation facilities.
You will gain expertise in fluid dynamics, kinetic theory, boundary-element and stochastic methods, and scientific computing. The project suits a graduate in engineering, physics or mathematics who wants to apply fundamental science to pollution and public health.
How to apply for admission: www.warwick.ac.uk/pgrengineering
The University of Warwick provides an inclusive working and learning environment, recognising and respecting every individual’s differences. We welcome applications from individuals who identify with any of the protected characteristics defined by the Equality Act 2010.