HetSys News

We caught up with Tom Hudson to discuss his exciting PhD project "Data-driven modelling of irradiation induced defects in fusion materials" in partnership with the UKAEA, based at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which is available for entry in 2022.

Nuclear fusion promises to deliver an unlimited supply of clean, green energy, of paramount importance to help address the climate emergency. There have been recent successes in generating fusion energy – notably at the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA) reactor at Culham where record-breaking fusion energy production was demonstrated earlier this year. However, a major barrier to the wider adoption of fusion remains: the materials used to build a fusion reactor need to withstand bombardment from high-energy radiation. In the case of metals, irradiation damage can be pictured in terms of the accumulation of dislocation loops which self-organise into complex microstructures, changing the mechanical properties of the material. To predict this phenomenon accurately, new models are needed. This project will therefore focus on developing a new mathematical framework to connect discrete atomistic models of dislocation loops to continuum differential equations.

#TeamWarwickUni is the University of Warwick's amateur fundraising activity team and made up of staff, undergraduates and postgraduates from across the academic and administrative departments of the University, as well as friends of Warwick. On the 15th May, the team will take on Stratford AC's Cotswold Hilly 100 – a 10x10 mile relay race through the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. This year, four HetSys members will be joing the team. Matthew Harrison (PGR, Cohort 1) will start things off at 5 am in Stratford. He’ll hand over to Oscar Holroyd (PGR, Cohort 3). Later, Radu Cimpeanu (academic staff, Maths) will run leg 6, before handing over to Peter Brommer (academic staff, Engineering).

The team are raising funds for IntoUniversity Coventry. IntoUniversity is a national education charity with a mission to raise the aspirations of young people from the poorest homes across the UK. These young people face a considerable educational disadvantage – statistically they do far less well at school, they are less likely to go to university and they have little chance of entering the professions. IntoUniversity aims to challenge this, supported by university partners, by establishing learning centres in key geographical locations, one of them in the University of Warwick's home city of Coventry.

There, the University and IntoUniversity work with children in the primary years in order to have a decisive impact upon their futures. Continuous academic and pastoral support is given to young people visiting the centres right through to university application. It is the only organisation with a centre-based model, starting with children aged seven and offering a long-term, multi-strand programme to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

With your help, Warwick and IntoUniversity will provide an integrated programme of academic support, pastoral care and mentoring for young people (aged between 7 and 18) in the area. The Coventry IntoUniversity Centre will help to transform the lives of many young people in the city. The centre will expect to see approximately 1,900 unique students over its first five years and is confident it will support 75% of those students to go to University.

If you want to support the team and improve the university access of disadvantaged children in the local area, you can donate at their JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/hilly100-2022. And if you want to run with them next year, please drop an e-mail to p.brommer@warwick.ac.uk

Good luck, team HetSys!

From 4th to 6th April 2022, HetSys CDT students, together with staff and students from across the Faculty, took part in an Industry Study Group on campus at Warwick.

Challenges were posed by Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA, TWI Ltd and Bayer AG, focussing on uncertainties in Molecular Dynamics Simulations, corrosion in "Slugcatchers" used in the oil and gas industry, and the absorption of Plant Protection Products (PPPs) in soils, respectively.

Students worked together intensively with input from the industry partners and staff to devise, model, code and compute solutions to the challenges, before presenting their results back to the group at the end of the event.

HetSys Director, Professor Julie Staunton said:

The event really demonstrated the true interdisciplinary nature of HetSys. It was fantastic to sense the enthusiasm and to see our students pooling their expertise to solve these problems in innovative and exciting ways.

Felix Hanke from Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA commented that:

It was great to see so many different solutions approached to our challenge, and to learn from students and staff alike. I really hope that we can use this opportunity as a start for a longer term collaboration with HetSys.

Tom Rocke, who is a first year PhD student within HetSys, worked on the challenge set by Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA and said:

The most valuable part of the Industry Study Event to me was being able to apply the techniques which we study in the HetSys training on a Real World problem. Applications of techniques used in lectures and workshops are often curated to give nice neat results as a demonstration tool, so it was stimulating to work on a problem where the path forward was less obvious.

Study Groups with industry have been running for over fifty years. They have been hugely successful in solving problems and providing insight for various organisations. Previous events have pump-primed current co-funded HetSys PhD projects with AWE and Astra Zeneca.

We would like to offer our thanks to the Knowledge Transfer Network and the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account for supporting this important event, and of course to our colleagues from Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA, TWI Ltd and Bayer AG for their time and input.