Horizontal convection at ocean-relevant proportions. This project aims to determine the role of buoyancy differences from solar radiation and vertical confinement. Flows created by lateral variation in heat or buoyancy are poorly understood when the horizontal length greatly exceeds the height, precisely the conditions relevant to industry and understanding the role of horizontal convection in Earth's oceans and in turn the delicate current system that maintains Earth's temperate climate. This p ....Horizontal convection at ocean-relevant proportions. This project aims to determine the role of buoyancy differences from solar radiation and vertical confinement. Flows created by lateral variation in heat or buoyancy are poorly understood when the horizontal length greatly exceeds the height, precisely the conditions relevant to industry and understanding the role of horizontal convection in Earth's oceans and in turn the delicate current system that maintains Earth's temperate climate. This project proposes computational and experimental efforts to probe the ultimate regime of heat transport in very shallow horizontal convection, benefiting humankind through improvements to future ocean and climate modelling efforts.Read moreRead less
Engineered interlayers of bio-retardant and nano-reinforcement on polymers. This project will address the important need for a highly effective lightweight coating. Different interlayers of bio-retardants derive from organic compounds and two-dimensional sheet-like nanomaterials are fabricated to enhance the charring, thermal barrier and flammability resistance. Molecular dynamics are adopted to deliver more targeted fabrication to achieve increased efficacy of the engineered interlayers and pro ....Engineered interlayers of bio-retardant and nano-reinforcement on polymers. This project will address the important need for a highly effective lightweight coating. Different interlayers of bio-retardants derive from organic compounds and two-dimensional sheet-like nanomaterials are fabricated to enhance the charring, thermal barrier and flammability resistance. Molecular dynamics are adopted to deliver more targeted fabrication to achieve increased efficacy of the engineered interlayers and provide important insights on the combustibility of polymers undergoing mass diffusivity, thermal diffusion and oxidation process at high temperatures. Expected outcomes of the project are lightweight coated polymers possessing elevated resistance to fire with a significant reduction of toxic gas emissions and smoke releases. Read moreRead less
Gravity Current Driven Smoke Dispersion In a Stratified Ambient. Smoke from bushfires transported by gravity currents, and known to occur nationwide, caused the shutdown of businesses, education and events in Canberra in 2019. Recent scientific investigations have shown that the speed of propagation and concentration of smoke in these three-dimensional gravity currents have a long term ‘memory’ of their initial configuration. In this project, high-fidelity computational and experimental techniq ....Gravity Current Driven Smoke Dispersion In a Stratified Ambient. Smoke from bushfires transported by gravity currents, and known to occur nationwide, caused the shutdown of businesses, education and events in Canberra in 2019. Recent scientific investigations have shown that the speed of propagation and concentration of smoke in these three-dimensional gravity currents have a long term ‘memory’ of their initial configuration. In this project, high-fidelity computational and experimental techniques will be used to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of gravity current entrainment and propagation. This knowledge will set a strong foundation to improve operational forecasts of smoke transport that will allow government agencies to better respond to the negative impact of these complicated flows.Read moreRead less
Enhancing passive cooling using flexible baffles. The project aims to develop a novel passive strategy using fluid-structure-thermal interactions to enhance passive cooling by natural convection and improve the energy efficiency of engineering systems. Comparing to the existing strategies, the new strategy does not require driving fan or pump and is quiet, reliable, self-adaptive and economical. The Multiphysics embodied in the proposal is at the leading edge of the field. Expected outcomes incl ....Enhancing passive cooling using flexible baffles. The project aims to develop a novel passive strategy using fluid-structure-thermal interactions to enhance passive cooling by natural convection and improve the energy efficiency of engineering systems. Comparing to the existing strategies, the new strategy does not require driving fan or pump and is quiet, reliable, self-adaptive and economical. The Multiphysics embodied in the proposal is at the leading edge of the field. Expected outcomes include advanced understanding of the complex Multiphysics and design rules for enhancing passive cooling by natural convection using flexible baffles. The research is expected to bring direct economic benefit to relevant industry and significant environmental and social benefit to the general public.Read moreRead less
Industrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC170100032
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,272,072.00
Summary
ARC Training Centre in Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies. The ARC Training Centre in Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies aims to train a cohort of industry-focused researchers to improve the fire safety of lightweight materials and structures and fire protection systems. The Training Centre expects to create knowledge on novel green and durable fire retardant materials, advanced fire models for urban and built environment, fire suppression technologies, and new flamma ....ARC Training Centre in Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies. The ARC Training Centre in Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies aims to train a cohort of industry-focused researchers to improve the fire safety of lightweight materials and structures and fire protection systems. The Training Centre expects to create knowledge on novel green and durable fire retardant materials, advanced fire models for urban and built environment, fire suppression technologies, and new flammability tests for compliance with fire safety regulatory standards. An expected outcome of this Training Centre is to accelerate the transformation of Australia’s industries in fire retardant materials, products and engineering services.Read moreRead less
Large Scale Natural Convection Boundary Layers with Non-Boussinesq Effects. This proposal aims to understand and predict heat transfer by turbulent natural convection in two scenarios, firstly at very large environmental scales, such as occur on melting Antarctic ice sheets, and secondly convection involving very large temperature differences such as occur in solar thermal power plants and industrial processes. These natural convection flow regimes are incredibly difficult to investigate directl ....Large Scale Natural Convection Boundary Layers with Non-Boussinesq Effects. This proposal aims to understand and predict heat transfer by turbulent natural convection in two scenarios, firstly at very large environmental scales, such as occur on melting Antarctic ice sheets, and secondly convection involving very large temperature differences such as occur in solar thermal power plants and industrial processes. These natural convection flow regimes are incredibly difficult to investigate directly but by focusing on the fundamental dynamics of the turbulent flows using large scale numerical simulations and innovative experiments, the project is expected to develop better analytical and computational models which will underpin improvements in
global ocean models and improve energy efficiency.Read moreRead less
Thermal transport in multi-phase flows for concentrating solar applications. This project seeks to advance the field of heat transfer in high-temperature systems involving liquid metals, with emphasis on energy storage and solar power technologies. The concept couples a tubular sodium boiler with a sodium chloride phase-change storage system for continuous energy supply. Sodium chloride is low cost and has a melting temperature suitable for a wide range of industrial processes. The project plans ....Thermal transport in multi-phase flows for concentrating solar applications. This project seeks to advance the field of heat transfer in high-temperature systems involving liquid metals, with emphasis on energy storage and solar power technologies. The concept couples a tubular sodium boiler with a sodium chloride phase-change storage system for continuous energy supply. Sodium chloride is low cost and has a melting temperature suitable for a wide range of industrial processes. The project plans to address the challenge of sodium stability in highly irradiated tubes by investigating mass, momentum, energy and radiative transport in liquid metals. It is intended that this will inform the design and testing of novel sodium boilers to provide stable and isothermal process heat for continuous or on-demand production of power, chemical fuels and commodities.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200101747
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$354,216.00
Summary
Mechanism and control of water droplets from condensation to defrosting. The deposition of frost/ice is inevitable and negatively impacts many fields and industries, such as the frosting of air source heat pumps and liquid natural gas vaporizers, and icing of aircraft and power cables. On the other hand, ice slurry is widely deployed for cold storage and transportation of food and organs. To accurately predict and control the frosting/icing process, this project aims to study and understand the ....Mechanism and control of water droplets from condensation to defrosting. The deposition of frost/ice is inevitable and negatively impacts many fields and industries, such as the frosting of air source heat pumps and liquid natural gas vaporizers, and icing of aircraft and power cables. On the other hand, ice slurry is widely deployed for cold storage and transportation of food and organs. To accurately predict and control the frosting/icing process, this project aims to study and understand the interrelated heat, mass and momentum transport phenomena of water droplets from condensation to defrosting. Outcomes of this project should contribute to the development of new material, such as applicable anti-icing/anti-frosting surfaces, and relative technology and equipment, and thus benefit a number of fields.Read moreRead less
3D Hypersonic Shock-Turbulent-Boundary-Layer Interactions. Shock-wave turbulent-boundary-layer interactions occur on hypersonic flight vehicles and can lead to high heating and increased drag. This is a paramount design issue that needs addressing. We aim to understand and quantify fundamental phenomena occurring in such interactions using state-of-the-art instrumentation and wind-tunnel facilities. Surfaces will be heated to realistic flight temperatures to simulate accurately the flight enviro ....3D Hypersonic Shock-Turbulent-Boundary-Layer Interactions. Shock-wave turbulent-boundary-layer interactions occur on hypersonic flight vehicles and can lead to high heating and increased drag. This is a paramount design issue that needs addressing. We aim to understand and quantify fundamental phenomena occurring in such interactions using state-of-the-art instrumentation and wind-tunnel facilities. Surfaces will be heated to realistic flight temperatures to simulate accurately the flight environment and include effects not reproduced with cold models. The effects of 3D features of the interactions will lead to new understanding of how the flow develops through a combination of experiments and numerical simulations. Future designs of hypersonic flight vehicles will benefit from knowledge gained.Read moreRead less
Thermal transport by design for fast and efficient solar thermochemical fuel production. This project aims to demonstrate the utility of the thermal transport by design approach to develop functionally graded reactive materials that allow for fast and efficient solar thermo-chemical fuel production. Prediction capabilities will be developed to optimise multi-scale radiative and gas transport coupled with non-stoichiometric redox reactions. Synthesis gas production will be demonstrated using the ....Thermal transport by design for fast and efficient solar thermochemical fuel production. This project aims to demonstrate the utility of the thermal transport by design approach to develop functionally graded reactive materials that allow for fast and efficient solar thermo-chemical fuel production. Prediction capabilities will be developed to optimise multi-scale radiative and gas transport coupled with non-stoichiometric redox reactions. Synthesis gas production will be demonstrated using the new structures in a prototype solar thermochemical reactor under high-flux irradiation. This project aims to advance the fields of thermal sciences and high-temperature solar thermochemical processing and expand the engineering knowledge base to pave the way to sustainable transportation with the existing infrastructure.Read moreRead less