Computational Modelling Group

Advanced modelling for two-phase reacting flow

Edward Richardson (Investigator)

Engine designers want computer programs to help them invent ways to use less fuel and produce less pollution. This research aims to provide an accurate and practical model for the injection and combustion of liquid fuel blends.

Aerofoil noise

Richard Sandberg (Investigator)

High-performance computing is used to identify noise sources on aerofoils.

B-meson coupling with relativistic heavy quarks

Jonathan Flynn (Investigator), Ben Samways, Dirk Broemmel, Patrick Fritzsch

We non-perturbatively compute the coupling between B* and B pi meson states relying on relativistic heavy quarks and domain wall light fermions. The coupling is of importance for an effective description of hadronic heavy meson decays.

Body Forces in Particle Suspensions in Turbulence

Gabriel Amine-Eddine (Investigator)

The behaviour of multiphase flows is of primary importance in many engineering applications. In the past, experimental observations have provided many researchers with the ability to understand and probe the phenomena and physical processes occurring in such flows. With advancements in modern day computational power, we now have the ability to gain an even greater wealth of knowledge, from what used to be a physical experiment, is now a virtual simulation.

Amine-Eddine, G.H. (2015) Body forces in particle suspensions in turbulence. University of Southampton, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, Doctoral Thesis , 283pp.

Cellular Automata Modelling of Membrane Formation and Protocell Evolution

Seth Bullock (Investigator), Stuart Bartlett

We simulated the meso-level behaviour of lipid-like particles in a range of chemical and physical environments. Self-organised protocellular structures can be shown to emerge spontaneously in systems with random, homogeneous initial conditions. Introducing an additional 'toxic' particle species and an associated set of synthesis reactions produced a new set of ecological behaviours compared to the original model of Ono and Ikegami.

Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling

Hans Fangohr, Ian Hawke, Peter Horak (Investigators), Susanne Ufermann Fangohr, Thorsten Wittemeier, Kieran Selvon, Alvaro Perez-Diaz, David Lusher, Ashley Setter, Emanuele Zappia, Hossam Ragheb, Ryan Pepper, Stephen Gow, Jan Kamenik, Paul Chambers, Robert Entwistle, Rory Brown, Joshua Greenhalgh, James Harrison, Jonathon Waters, Ioannis Begleris, Craig Rafter

The £10million Centre for Doctoral Training was launched in November 2013 and is jointly funded by EPSRC, the University of Southampton, and its partners.

The NGCM brings together world-class simulation modelling research activities from across the University of Southampton and hosts a 4-year doctoral training programme that is the first of its kind in the UK.

Colonising Polynesia; Uncertain sailing craft route modelling

Thomas Dickson (Investigator), David Sear

Through developing a novel methodology of modelling sailing craft routing it is possible to investigate archaeological problems as well as applications to modern yacht racing and autonomous sailing technology. This research uses iridis to provide accurate and fast analysis of shortest path routes for sailing craft in order to provide insight and improve safety of operation.

Complexity in Modelling Electric Marine Propulsive Devices

Suleiman Sharkh, Neil Bressloff, Hans Fangohr (Investigators), Aleksander Dubas

This project involves the simulation of turbulent flow around a marine rim-driven thruster and the complex interaction of flow features involved through computational fluid dynamics. Following this, the optimisation of design parameters using computational fluid dynamics to calculate the objective function is performed and surrogate modelling utilised to estimate optimum design configuration.

Computational Fluid Dynamics of Compressor Blades Within a Gas Turbine Engine (HiPSTAR)

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), John Leggett

As modern engines become more and more efficient, the importance of understanding the finer details of the physics involved grows, if further gains are to be achieved. In such harsh enviroments, such as within a gas turbine engine, there are few means of studying them physicaly and we are left with little choice but to use super computers to model the flow.

Cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies

Anna Kapinska (Investigator)

Radio galaxies and quasars are among the largest and most powerful single objects known and are believed to have had a significant impact on the evolving Universe and its large-scale structure. Their jets inject a significant amount of energy into the surrounding medium, hence they can provide useful information in the study of the density and evolution of the intergalactic and intracluster medium. The jet activity is also believed to regulate the growth of massive galaxies via the AGN feedback. In this project, through the use of numerical simulations, I explore the intrinsic and extrinsic physical properties of the population of Fanaroff-Riley II (FR II) objects, i.e. their kinetic luminosities, lifetimes, and central densities of their environments. This allows one to investigate evolution of these radio sources across cosmic time, and to discuss the significance of the impact of these sources on the evolving Universe.

Coupled multi-scale simulation of high Reynolds number airfoil flows

Neil Sandham, Nicola De Tullio (Investigators), David Lusher

Application of multi-scale nested direct numerical simulations to high Reynolds number aerofoil flows.

Deep Optimisation

Jamie Caldwell

The project will develop the implementation and application of a new optimisation technique. 'Deep optimisation' combines deep learning techniques in neural networks with distributed optimisation methods to create a dynamically re-scalable optimisation process. This project will develop this technique to better-understand its capabilities and limitations and develop GPU implementations. The protein structure prediction problem will be used as the main test application.

Development of a novel Navier-Stokes solver (HiPSTAR)

Richard Sandberg (Investigator)

Development of a highly efficient Navier-Stokes solver for HPC.

Development of wide-ranging functionality in ONETEP

Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigator), Jacek Dziedzic

ONETEP is at the cutting edge of developments in first principles calculations. However, while the fundamental difficulties of performing accurate first-principles calculations with linear-scaling cost have been solved, only a small core of functionality is currently available in ONETEP which prevents its wide application. In this collaborative project between three Universities, the original developers of ONETEP will lead an ambitious workplan whereby the functionality of the code will be rapidly and significantly enriched.

Eddy-resol?ving Simulation?s for Turbomachi?nery Applicatio?ns

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), Li-Wei Chen

Traditionally, the design of turbomachinery components has been exclusively accomplished with steady CFD, with Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models being the predominant choice. With computing power continuously increasing, high-fidelity numerical simulations of turbomachinery components are now becoming a valuable research tool for validating the design process and continued development of design tool.
In the current project, Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) and other eddy-resolving approaches will be performed of turbomachinery components to establish benchmark data for design tools, and to investigate physical mechanisms that cannot be captured by traditional CFD approaches.

Fluid Dynamics Optimisation of Rim-Drive Thrusters and Ducted Hydrokinetic Generators

Aleksander Dubas, Suleiman Sharkh (Investigators)

This is a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and TSL Technology Ltd. to develop computational fluid dynamics software design tools for modelling and optimising the design of propeller thrusters and water turbine generators.

Fluid Loads and Motions of Damaged Ships

Dominic Hudson, Ming-yi Tan (Investigators), Christian Wood, James Underwood, Adam Sobey

An area of research currently of interest in the marine industry is the effect of damage on ship structures. Research into the behaviour of damaged ships began in the mid nineties as a result of Ro-Ro disasters (e.g. Estonia in 1994). Due to the way the Estonia sank early research mainly focused on transient behaviour immediately after the damage takes place, the prediction of capsize, and of large lateral motions. Further research efforts, headed by the UK MoD, began following an incident where HMS Nottingham ran aground tearing a 50m hole from bow to bridge, flooding five compartments and almost causing the ship to sink just off Lord Howe Island in 2002. This project intends to answer the following questions:
“For a given amount of underwater damage (e.g. collision or torpedo/mine hit), what will be the progressive damage spread if the ship travels at ‘x’ knots? OR for a given amount of underwater damage, what is the maximum speed at which the ship can travel without causing additional damage?”

Graphical Simulation of Archaeological Environments

Graeme Earl (Investigator)

This project defines an emerging area of interest in physically accurate rendering within the Archaeological Computing Research Group. Sub-projects include analysis of Roman spaces at herculaneum, Neolithic buildings at Catalhoyuk and simulation of a range of artefacts.

Hadronic structure on the computer

Jonathan Flynn (Investigator), Dirk Broemmel, Thomas Rae, Ben Samways

In experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, the interactions that occur between the colliding particles (protons in this case) can be factorised into a simple scattering between two constituent particles, called quarks, followed by a hadronisation process, which describes the dynamics of forming the bound proton states. Quarks are particles within the proton that bind to form composite particles (hadrons) such as a proton. The scattering process can be computed relatively easily, but hadronisation is intrinsically non-perturbative and hard to calculate. Lattice QCD (computer simulation of QCD on a discrete space-time lattice) provides our only known first-principles and systematically-improvable method to address problems like hadronisation. This project uses Iridis to extract parton distribution amplitudes which are experimentally inaccessible, but needed to describe the quark structure of hadrons.

How far can we stretch the MARTINI?

Syma Khalid (Investigator), Ric Gillams

To date, coarse-grained lipid models have generally been parameterised to ensure the correct prediction of structural properties of membranes, such as the area per lipid and the bilayer thickness. The work described here explores the extent to which coarse-grained models are able to predict correctly bulk properties of lipids (phase behaviour) as well as the mechanical properties, such as lateral pressure profiles and stored elastic stress in bilayers. Such an evaluation is crucial for understanding the predictive capabilities of coarse-grained models.

Hybrid quantum and classical free energy methods in computational drug optimisation

Jonathan Essex, Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigators), Christopher Cave-Ayland

This work is based around the application of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics to the field of computational drug design and optimisation. Through the application of these theories the calculation of the physical properties of drug-like molecules is possible and hence some predictive power for their pharmaceutical activity in vivo can be obtained.

Hybrid RANS/LES methods

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), Markus Weinmann

Novel hybrid RANS/LES methods are developed for more accurate and efficient simulation of flow over complex geometries.

Integrated in silico prediction of protein-protein interaction motifs

Richard Edwards (Investigator), Nicolas Palopoli, Kieren Lythgow

Many vital protein-protein interactions are mediated by Short Linear Motifs (SLiMs) which are short proteins typically 5-15 amino acids long containing only a few positions crucial to function. This project integrates a number of leading computational techniques to predict novel SLiMs and add crucial detail to protein-protein interaction networks.

Investigation into the Interfacial Physics of Field Effect Biosensors

Nicolas Green, Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigators), Benjamin Lowe

This interdisciplinary research aims to improve understanding of Field Effect Transistor Biosensors (Bio-FETs) and to work towards a multiscale model which can be used to better understand and predict device response.

Is fine-scale turbulence universal?

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), Patrick Bechlars

Complementary numerical simulations and experiments of various canonical flows will try to answer the question whether fine-scale turbulence is universal.

Jet noise

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), Neil Sandham

Direct numerical simulations are used to investigate jet noise.

Lattice Holographic Cosmology

Andreas Juttner (Investigator), Matthew Mostert

This project will aim to develop new theoretical field methods and massively parallel computational algorithms to be utilised on both new computational architectures (e.g. Intel Xeon Phi) and existing high performance computers (HPCs).

The ultimate goal is to make predictions for the power spectrum and non-gaussianties of the CMB which would then be falsifiable by comparison to the Planck and WMAP data.

Lattice Holographic Cosmology

This project will aim to develop new theoretical field methods and massively parallel computational algorithms to be utilised on both new computational architectures (e.g. Intel Xeon Phi) and existing high performance computers (HPCs).

Mathematical modelling of plant nutrient uptake

Tiina Roose (Investigator)

In this project I will describe a model of plant water and nutrient uptake and how to translate this model and experimental data from the single root scale to the root branching structure scale.

Modelling micromagnetism at elevated temperature

Hans Fangohr, Kees de Groot, Peter de_Groot (Investigators), Dmitri Chernyshenko

We aim to develop a multiscale multiphysics model of
micromagnetism at elevated temperatures with atomistic simulations for
material parameter. The tool will be used to guide the development of the next generation magnetic data storage technology: heat assisted magnetic recording.

Modelling power output and wake effects in tidal stream turbine arrays

William Batten (Investigator), Matthew Harrison, Luke Blunden

The PhD research is regards the investigation of modelling techniques for simplifying turbine simulation so that models of large arrays can be investigated.

Multi-objective design optimisation of coronary stents

Neil Bressloff, Georges Limbert (Investigators), Sanjay Pant

Stents are tubular type scaffolds that are deployed (using an inflatable balloon on a catheter), most commonly to recover the shape of narrowed (diseased) arterial segments. Despite the widespread clinical use of stents in cardiovascular intervention, the presence of such devices can cause adverse responses leading to fatality or to the need for further treatment. The most common unwanted responses of inflammation are in-stent restenosis and thrombosis. Such adverse biological responses in a stented artery are influenced by many factors, including the design of the stent. This project aims at using multi-objective optimisation techniques to find an optimum family of coronary stents which are more resistant to the processes of in-stent restenosis (IR) and stent thrombosis (ST).

Next Generation Space Debris Environment Model

Hugh Lewis (Investigator), Samuel Diserens

Developing a next generational model of the space debris environment. Including inter-disciplinary issues related to space debris, space operations, space situational awareness, space weather, commercialisation, possible conflicts in space and regulation

NGCM-0054 - Automatic Code Generation for Computational Science

Hans Fangohr (Investigator), Gary Downing

Automatically generate code to solve partial differential equations specified symbolically.

Non-Perturbative Renormalisation on the Lattice

Jonathan Flynn (Investigator), Dirk Broemmel, Thomas Rae

In this project we compute renormalisation factors for various physical observables in a non-perturbative lattice framework. Renormalisation hereby arises due to a fundamental scale dependence of the physical processes.

Numerical Elastic Neutron Stars

Ian Hawke, Ian Jones (Investigators), Andrew Penner

We study the astrophysical effects of the crust on a neutron star using an elasto-hydrodynamic model.

Optical Characterisation of Black Silicon for Photovoltaics Using the Finite Element Method

Jack Tyson (Investigator)

Here we present a novel method of simulating the reflectance spectra of black silicon solar cells using the finite element method. Designed in COMSOL Multiphysics is a new set of algorithm-controlled-geometries rendering a vast array of different structural permutations of silicon nanowires. Our model focused on the variation of this geometry within customisable predefined conditions in large output quantities, collated and averaged to reliably determine the reflectance of an entire black silicon solar cell.

Porous Media and Hydrothermal Circulation in Weakened Ocean Crust

Formation of oceanic crust is an interplay between magma and the cooling hydrothermal system above that its own heat drives. To understand this system we must understand where and how water circulates through the crust.

Ocean crust is riddled with faults and other permeable pathways along which water preferentially flows. We seek to use basic numerical models of circulation in porous media to understand how much of an influence on crust formation these anomalous features have, compared to the bulk, unfractured crust.

Precision study of critical slowing down in lattice simulations of the CP^{N-1} model

Jonathan Flynn, Andreas Juttner (Investigators), Andrew Lawson

This project involves the study of critical slowing down (CSD): a property that may arise when taking measurements in Monte Carlo simulations. In order to study and quantify this phenomenon we have performed extensive simulations of the CP^{N-1} model. By studying the properties of the Monte Carlo algorithms in this model, we hope to make algorithmic improvements that can then be employed in simulations of physical quantum field theories, such as in lattice quantum chromodynamics (lattice QCD).

Prediction of orifice flow flooding rates through generic orifices

Dominic Hudson, Ming-yi Tan (Investigators), Christian Wood, Adam Sobey

This presearch concentrates on the modelling of compartment flooding rates following the occurrence of damage in a ship's side shell. Typical state of the art flooding models use Torricelli’s formula to calculate flooding rates using a constant co-efficient of discharge (Cd). Based on Bernoulli’s theorem, turbulence and viscosity effects are not included using a Cd independent of damage shape or size. Previous work indicates that this assumption over-simplifies the problem to an extent where the flooding rates used for calculation are in error. This project will use CFD validated by experiment to calculate flooding rates for a large number of cases from which a 'krigged' response surface will be generated. Validity of the subsequent response surface will be interrogated.

pyQCD

Matthew Spraggs

A basic Python package to perform coarse lattice QCD simulations on desktop and workstation computers.

Scalability of Energy Efficient Routing Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks

Geoff Merrett (Investigator), Davide Zilli

This project compares two broad classes of routing algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks, message flooding and single path, by means of a simulation model. In particular, we want to understand how the two scale in terms of energy efficiency on large networks of sensors.

Self-Force and Black Hole Inspirals

Sam Dolan (Investigator)

We use IRIDIS to compute the self-force acting on a solar-mass black hole orbiting a supermassive black hole.

Skyrmionic states in confined nanostructures

Hans Fangohr (Investigator), Marijan Beg

An ever increasing need for data storage creates great challenges for the development of high-capacity storage devices that are cheap, fast, reliable, and robust. Because of the fundamental constraints of today's technologies, further progress requires radically different approaches. Magnetic skyrmions are very promising candidates for the development of future low-power, high-capacity, non-volatile data storage devices.

Software Sustainability Institute

Simon Hettrick (Investigator)

A national facility for cultivating world-class research through software

Software helps researchers to enhance their research, and improve the speed and accuracy of their results. The Software Sustainability Institute can help you introduce software into your research or improve the software you already use.

The Institute is based at the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford and Southampton, and draws on a team of experts with a breadth of experience in software development, project and programme management, research facilitation, publicity and community engagement.

We help people build better software, and we work with researchers, developers, funders and infrastructure providers to identify key issues and best practice in scientific software.

Spatial variability of the atmosphere in southern England

Joanna Nield, Jason Noble, Edward Milton (Investigators), Robin Wilson

No-one really knows how variable key atmospheric parameters such as Aerosol Optical Thickness and Water Vapour content are over relatively small areas. This study aims to find out!

Supernova Rates in the Local Universe

Mark Sullivan (Investigator), Christopher Frohmaier

This project will calculate the frequency of exploding stars -- or supernovae -- in the nearby universe. We simulate a 'toy universe' by exploding billions of stars in a computer, and then artificially 'observing' these explosions by replicating a real astronomical sky survey, the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). The results of this simulation allows us to discover the rate at which supernovae occur in the local universe each year.

Supersonic axisymmetric wakes

Richard Sandberg (Investigator)

Direct numerical simulations are used to shed more light on structure formation and evolution in supersonic wakes.

Sustainable domain-specific software generation tools for extremely parallel particle-based simulations

Chris-Kriton Skylaris (Investigator)

A range of particle based methods (PBM) are currently used to simulate materials in chemistry, engineering, physics and biophysics. The 4 types of PBM considered directly in the proposed are molecular dynamics (MD), the ONETEP quantum mechanics-based program, discrete element modelling (DEM), and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH).
The overall research objective is to develop a sustainable tool that will deliver, in the future, cutting edge research applicable to applications ranging from dam engineering to atomistic drug design.

The application and critical assessment of protein-ligand binding affinities

Jonathan Essex (Investigator), Ioannis Haldoupis

A method that can accurately predict the binding affinity of small molecules to a protein target would be imperative to pharmaceutical development due to the time and resources that could be saved. A head-to-head comparison of such methodology, ranging from approximate methods to more rigorous methods, is performed in order to assess their accuracy and utility across a range of targets.

Towards biologically-inspired active-compliant-wing micro-air-vehicles

Richard Sandberg (Investigator), Sonia Serrano-Galiano

Despite a good knowledge of the physiology of bats and birds, engineering applications with active dynamic wing compliance capability are currently few and far between. Recent advances in development of electroactive materials together with high-fidelity numerical/experimental methods provide a foundation to develop biologically-inspired dynamically-active wings that can achieve "on-demand" aerodynamic performance. However this requires first to develop a thorough understanding of the dynamic coupling between the electro-mechanical structure of the membrane wing and its unsteady aerodynamics. In this collaborative initiative between the University of Southampton and Imperial College London, we are developing an integrated research programme that carries out high-fidelity experiments and computations to achieve a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of aero-electro-mechanical coupling in dynamically-actuated compliant wings. The goal is to utilise our understanding and devise control strategies that use integral actuation schemes to improve aerodynamic performance of membrane wings. The long-term goal of this project is to enable the use of soft robotics technology to build integrally-actuated wings for Micro Air Vehicles (MAV) that mimic the dynamic shape control capabilities of natural flyers.