University of Edinburgh has huge a campus in Scotland and widely known as for its contribution in top notch education and research. The contribution of University of Edinburgh is not only limited to natural sciences and engineering but it also offers high quality research as well as higher education in bio-medical sciences, social sciences, humanities, psychology, education, architecture etc.

1. The physics and engineering of flowing suspensions

Summary of Doctoral Project:

Suspensions of particles in liquid are found throughout nature and industry, for instance chocolate, toothpaste, slurries and ceramics. Understanding their flow properties is crucial to describing the natural world and characterising engineering processes. We are just beginning to unravel the dramatic influence that particle-particle interactions have on their flow behaviour when the liquid is Newtonian and the particles are hard, repulsive and monosized (see Figure 1 and Ref [1]). In reality these conditions are rarely met: suspending liquids are often ‘viscoelastic’; particles are often soft or sticky and have large size distributions. How do the combined microphysics of these particle-level details control the resulting flow behaviour?

Last Application Date: September 1, 2022

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2. Ship hull hydrodynamics

Summary of Doctoral Project:

This project is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and AkzoNobel’s Marine, Protective & Yacht Coatings, the world leader in marine coatings, and will include a three-month secondment at AkzoNobel. The challenge of predicting the resistance of ship hulls in real sailing conditions is due to the wide range of length-scales involved, from the micron-scale of the coating roughness to the metre-scale of the ship’s boundary layer thickness (Raupach et al. Appl. Mech. Rev. 44 1991, Gad-el-Hak Appl. Mech. Rev. 49 1996). The width of this range of scales, and the fluid mechanics interaction between the scales, make the physics impossible to be replicated exactly in a laboratory setting (Gad-el-Hak Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 38 2002, Jimenez Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 36 2004).

Last Application Date: January 1, 2023

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3. Recovery of Reactive Nitrogen Molecules Using Adsorption Processes

Summary of Doctoral Project:

A PhD Studentship is available as part of the UKRI GCRF South Asian Nitrogen Hub. This multidisciplinary Hub is formed by 32 leading research organisations and is aimed at tackling the impact of emissions of reactive nitrogen molecules in South Asia. As part of this effort, this PhD opportunity is linked to the objective to develop novel solutions based on adsorption separation processes for the recovery of reactive nitrogen (for example ammonia and, NOX) from dilute streams. One of the major challenges that the Hub intends to tackle is reducing emissions and closing the loop in the manufacture of fertilizers. The current approach when treating emissions is to reduce reactive nitrogen molecules to molecular N2. This is then reactivated to ammonia and then urea as part of the production of fertilizers or oxidized in the production of nitric acid.

Last Application Date: January 31, 2023

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4. In-situ Sensing and Structural Engineering

Summary of Doctoral Project:

Structures such as buildings, bridges, masts and towers are increasingly being fitted with sensors to measure their in-situ performance. There is a huge variety in the types of sensors applied, and they measure parameters from air quality, temperature and environmental conditions to strain, force and acceleration. This project focuses on how information derived from those sensors’ data can improve structural engineering. The opportunity: Engineers could use sensor data from existing structures to make future designs more efficient, and to apply new materials and technologies with confidence. The problem: Sensor data from structures are difficult to interpret because they contain the mixed response to many unknown actions on the structure.

Last Application Date: September 30, 2022

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5. Holistic Analysis of Flexibility in integrated Low Carbon Energy Systems

Summary of Doctoral Project:

The Institute for Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh invites applications for are invited for a PhD studentship in “Holistic Analysis of Flexibility in Integrated Low Carbon Energy Systems”. With this studentship, you will get the opportunity to advance your study in the field of renewable-base future energy system and contribute to the next major leap towards net zero. The student will be supervised by Dr Wei Sun and in collaboration with Prof Gareth Harrison. The studentship will start as soon as possible from October 2022. As the pace of decarbonization accelerates towards net zero, the electricity, gas, road transport and heating sectors are becoming more closely integrated. While significant progress has been made on the electrification of the heat and transportation, the non-dispatchable nature of most renewable electricity generation poses a significant challenge for further decarbonization.

Last Application Date: September 30, 2022

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6. Hierarchical nanofabrication of smart and functional materials for energy efficient separations

Summary of Doctoral Project:

This is a Self-funded PhD studentship (3.5 year). Candidate could consider further information and other funding option or secure funding supports elsewhere. Enhanced demand for fuels worldwide not only decreased world oil reserves but also increased climate concerns about the use of fossil-based fuel. To address these energy and environmental problems, efforts have been made towards improved utilization of fossil fuel and development of renewable energy production. With the abundant availability and carbon-neutral nature, biomass is recognized as one of the most promising renewable energy resource. A number of transportation fuels can be produced from biomass, helping to alleviate demand for petroleum products and improve the greenhouse gas emissions profile of the transportation sector. Traditional catalysts, such as zeolites, suffer from many undesirable properties, such as small accessible pore size, low hydrothermal stability, and less controllable active sites. Among these, low hydrothermal stability at upgrading temperatures greatly hinders conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to biofuel.

Last Application Date: August 20, 2023

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7. Deep-tissue optical imaging

Summary of Doctoral Project:

The CMOS Sensors and Systems Group, of the Institute for Integrated Micro and Nano Systems within the University Of Edinburgh School Of Engineering, invites applications for a PhD position focused on deep-tissue optical imaging, supported by an EPSRC 2050 proposal. The proposal envisages a world in 2050, where walking through a revolving door or archway allows non-visible light to generate detailed 3D images of any patient with high resolution. This will allow targeting very early detection of disease using non-ionising radiation and novel detectors, in association with fast computational methods and algorithms. This will be transformative, is a practical reality, and in addition potentially offers unique treatment options for the healthcare needs of 2050.

Last Application Date: December 7, 2022

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8. America’s Cup yacht hydrofoils

Summary of Doctoral Project:

In 2013, for the first time, the America’s Cup was sailed with foiling boats. This led to fast growth in the use of foils on both sailing and power boats, both for racing and cruising. Foiling allows unprecedented speed and comfort, but it raises significant design challenges on control and safety. The project aims at developing an in-depth understanding of the unsteady hydrodynamics of America’s Cup hydrofoils. The project will be performed with the partnership of world-leading yacht designers and professional sailors, and will be potentially affiliated with an America Cup team.

Last Application Date: December 31, 2025

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9. Aerodynamics of the gliding seeds of the Javan cucumber vine

Summary of Doctoral Project:

The Javan cucumber (Alsomitra macrocarpa) is a vine that climbs the trees of tropical forests toward the canopy and sunlight. At great heights, it grows pods that contain hundreds of winged seeds. As the wind blows against the opening of the pods, the samaras are peeled away and released. Unlike many gliding seeds that use auto-rotation, the seed of the Javan cucumber vine exhibits a stable gliding flight with its paper-thin wings. The seed’s design is efficient enough to achieve a slower rate of descent compared to that of rotating winged seeds. This aerodynamic advantage allows the seed to be easily carried by the wind several hundred metres. It is possible for the seeds to glide up to hundreds of meters, ensuring that they spread far from each other as well as the parent pod. This wide dispersal prevents the seeds from competing for resources once they fall to the ground and begin growing.

Last Application Date: December 31, 2025

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10. Aerodynamics of high-performance yacht sails

Summary of Doctoral Project:

The proposed project aims to investigate the fluid dynamics of yacht sails. Sails have unique flow features, which allows the generation of very high lift and high lift/drag ratio compared to wings and blades commonly used in other fields such as aeronautics and turbo machinery. The project aims to understand the underlying mechanisms of these flow features in order to allow the performance of sails to be further enhanced and, importantly, to allow the cross fertilisation of ideas in research fields where there is a need for fluid dynamic efficiency. The flow field around sails has several uncommon characteristics. The sharp leading edge leads to laminar separation followed by laminar-to-turbulent transition and then by turbulent reattachment, forming a leading edge vortex (LEV). LEVs are known on flat plates with a sharp leading edge and on delta wings, while on rounded-nose foils used for low-pressure turbines a similar features known as the laminar separation bubble (LSB) occurs.

Last Application Date: December 31, 2025

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11. Advanced Marine Renewable Energy Harvesting via Added-mass-variation Control

Summary of Doctoral Project:

The study of cephalopods (octopuses and squids) has demonstrated that bodies which undergo shape variations while traveling across a dense medium can exploit added-mass-variation in order to enhance thrust. This very same principle can be applied to a submerged mass-spring-damper system, showing that an actively controlled shape-variation routine can drive the oscillator in resonance by using the added-mass-variation force to balance viscous drag. Until recent, the exploitation of added-mass-variation has been exclusively employed in the context of self propelled vehicles with the purpose of enhancing maneuverability and efficiency. However, the capability to trigger resonance in a vibrational system by added-mass control lends itself to the exploitation of this principle in the context of marine renewable energy harvesting.

Last Application Date: December 31, 2023

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12. A deep dive into the understanding of the water adsorption hysteresis phenomena in porous materials

Summary of Doctoral Project:

Water is an essential molecule for life. It is omnipresent on Earth and in various forms. This provides the opportunity to harvest water even if it is not present as a liquid, for example, in arid regions. On the other hand, the presence of water, even at very low concentrations, poses serious challenges when a product needs to be dry, for example, to avoid condensation and formation of acidic components during pipeline transportation of CO2. Adsorption on porous materials provides effective solutions for those challenges. Porous materials can concentrate water in their pores very efficiently, which holds great potential for water harvesting. Also, porous materials can reduce the water content in gasses very efficiently to sub-ppm levels. The fundamental understanding of adsorption principles is of paramount importance for the proper selection of porous materials and the development of adsorption-based applications.

Last Application Date: January 31, 2023

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