About the Project
Understanding how particles are transported by ocean waves and currents is of critical importance for a wide range of areas, from designing offshore structures (e.g. offshore wind turbines) to understanding sediment transport, microplastic dispersion and the health and behaviours of underwater ecosystems. Understanding is, however, limited for realistic ocean environments and realistic particle size distributions. There have been several barriers to accurately numerical modelling these problems ranging from a lack of appropriate theory to provide boundary conditions, to a lack of appropriate modelling architectures to capture the multi-scale complex interplay between waves, sheared currents, and turbulence at all relevant scales.
This project will bring together state-of-the-art theoretical developments in wave plus sheared current flows, and simulation methods to address the outstanding questions regarding these processes in realistic ocean environments. For example, what is the effect of vertically sheared currents on particle transport and drift in waves? How do waves and currents influence turbulence statistics and anisotropy, and how does this affect the dispersion characteristics of particles? These factors are often omitted yet are known to play a considerable role on ocean kinematics and associated particle transport. A combination of analytical models and novel high-order numerical simulation methods will be developed to tackle this problem. We will perform Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of the Navier Stokes equations to quantify the effect of both large-scale (waves, sheared currents, larger turbulent structures) and microscale turbulent phenomena on stochastic particle transport. This will be conducted over a range of realistic conditions and particle properties.
The resulting analytical and numerical models, and associated outputs, will have broad applicability and implications across areas in ocean and coastal engineering and oceanography. Through this project, we aim to transform our understanding of particle dispersion in the oceans.
Equality, Diversity and inclusion
Equality, diversity and inclusion is fundamental to the success of The University of Manchester, and is at the heart of all of our activities. We know that diversity strengthens our research community, leading to enhanced research creativity, productivity and quality, and societal and economic impact. We actively encourage applicants from diverse career paths and backgrounds and from all sections of the community, regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation and transgender status.
We also support applications from those returning from a career break or other roles. We consider offering flexible study arrangements (including part-time: 50%, 60% or 80%, depending on the project/funder).
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