Developing advanced numerical methods, models, and computational techniques for prediction and monitoring
We forecast and model a wide range of industrial and environmental processes, with a particular focus on developing and applying advanced numerical methods and scientific computational techniques.
We engineer solutions to some of the most pressing global problems — including how pollution travels through busy cities, how metals enter and disperse through the environment, and how ocean wave energy dissipates on shorelines during storm surges — and work to understand the myriad physical processes occuring in the pristine and perturbed natural environment.
By reproducing realistic surfaces of flowing liquids, crashing waves, bursting bubbles and more, our modelling sheds light on processes such as:
- ocean circulation;
- climate systems;
- nuclear safety;
- radiative transport and multi-phase flow;
- fluid-particulate-solid behaviour;
- minerals processing; and
- meteorite impacts.
If you are interested in one of the projects listed below, we encourage you to contact the primary project supervisor or the alternative contact person for further information.
Current Projects
Current projects in Environmental Geochemistry and Engineering [Info sheet - Current projects in Environmental Geochemistry and Engineering]
Supervisor: Professor Dominik Weiss
Pore-Scale Imaging, Analysis, and Data-Driven Pore-Scale Modelling Info Sheet - Blunt Pore-Scale Imaging]
Supervisor: Professor Martin Blunt
Topology, wettability and fluid flow in porous materials [Info Sheet - Blunt Topology]
Supervisor: Professor Martin Blunt
Coupling Life Cycle Assessment and modelling tools to inform sustainable mineral resource management [Info Sheet - Brito-Parada LCA]
Supervisors: Dr Pablo Brito-Parada, Dr Stephanie Muller (BRGM, France), Jacques Villeneuve (BRGM, France)
Modelling and predicting flotation froth stability [Info Sheet - Brito-Parada Froth Stability]
Supervisors: Dr Pablo Brito-Parada, Professor Stephen Neethling
Anisotropic Geoelectrical Imaging - can Artificial Intelligence (AI) replace conventional resistivity inversion approaches? [Info Sheet - Fang Anisotropic Geoelectrical Imaging]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain, Dr Paul Wilkinson (British Geological Survey), Dr Oliver Kuras (British Geological Survey), Dr Jorg Herwanger (MP Geomechanics)
New generation data assimilation and rapid response models for urban flooding [Info Sheet - Fang Flooding]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Optimisation of sensor locations for observation of air flows/pollutions [Info Sheet - Fang Sensor]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Rapid Response Modelling for Assessment of Pollution and Toxic Releases in Complex Urban Environments [Info Sheet - Fang ROM]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Structure and Evolution of the African Plate from Geophysical Observations [Info Sheet - Goes Africa Joint Tomography]
Supervisors: Professor Saskia Goes, Dr Gareth Roberts
Redundancy, retiming and data flow in compiling finite-difference applications for many core architectures [Info Sheet - Gorman OPESCI]
Supervisors: Dr Gerard Gorman, Professor Paul Kelly (Department of Computing), Dr Fabio Luporini
Applying Dimensionality Reduction to Solutions on Finite Element Meshes with Autoencoders [Info Sheet - Heaney Autoencoders]
Supervisors: Dr Claire Heaney, Professor Christopher Pain
Large Scale AI Modelling for Environmental Flows [Info Sheet - Heaney Environmental Flows]
Supervisors: Dr Claire Heaney, Professor Christopher Pain
Simulation of geo-thermal wells with reduced order modelling and data assimilation [Info Sheet - Heaney ROM DA NORMS]
Supervisors: Dr Claire Heaney, Professor Christopher Pain, Professor Matthew Jackson
Developing the world’s largest geobattery: ultra-hightemperature underground thermal energy storage for large-scale electricity storage in the UK [Info Sheet - Jackson Geobattery]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Professor Gary Hampson, Dr Marko Aunedi, (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)
Efficient numerical modelling of subsurface hydrogen storage for low carbon energy [Info Sheet - Jackson Subsurface Hydrogen Storage]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Professor Gary Hampson
Electrokinetic enhanced in-situ resource utilisation (EK-ISRU) for green copper production [Info Sheet - Jackson EK-ISRU]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Dr Pablo Brito-Parada, Professor Stephen Neethling
Fluid dynamics of magma reservoirs [Info Sheet - Jackson CFD]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Dr Haiyang Hu, Professor Jon Blundy (University of Oxford)
Rapid modelling of reactive flow using machine learning and dynamic mesh optimisation [Info Sheet - Jackson Reactive Flow]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Professor Chris Pain, Dr Claire Heaney
Storage and transport of microplastics in groundwater [Info Sheet - Jackson Microplastics]
Supervisors: Professor Matthew Jackson, Professor Gary Hampson, Professor Alexandra Porter (Department of Materials), Dr Geoff Fowler (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Global CO2 storage capacity: Modeling limitations of geography and injectivity [Info sheet - Global CO2 Storage capacity]
Supervisor: Dr Sam Krevor and others TBA
Reservoir characterisation and modelling of CO2 storage underground [Info sheet - Reservoir characterisation and modelling of CO2 storage underground]
Supervisor: Dr Sam Krevor and others TBA
Modelling the physics of granular rock compaction for characterisation of flow in reservoirs [Info Sheet - Krevor Digital Rock CO2 Storage 2023]
Supervisors: Dr John-Paul Latham, Dr Jiansheng Xiang, Professor Martin Blunt
Simulation of charge-slurry interactions in tumbling and stirred mills [Info Sheet - Neethling Simulation of Mills]
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Neethling
The impact of mineral texture on the relationship between particle size, surface exposure and mineral liberation: A key to coarse particle flotation [Info Sheet - Neethling Coarse Particle Flotation]
Supervisor: Professor Stephen Neethling
AI modelling of underground water for heating buildings [Info Sheet - Pain Underground Water Heating]
Supervisors: Professor Christopher Pain, Dr Claire Heaney
PhD studentship: Numerical Modelling of Cycling Subsurface Fluid Storage [Info Sheet - Paluszny Numerical Modelling]
Supervisors: Dr Adriana Paluszny and Dr Ronny Pini
Understanding and minimising the potential environmental impacts of tidal range (lagoon) based renewable energy generation via advanced numerical modelling [Info Sheet - Piggott Tidal Lagoons]
Supervisor: Professor Matthew Piggott
Integrating Geochemistry and Geophysics to Make Critical Metal Treasure Maps [Info Sheet - Richards Treasure Maps]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Dr Gareth Roberts, Professor Saskia Goes, Dr Mark Hoggard (Australian National University), Dr Karol Czarnota (Geoscience Australia)
Deciphering the influence of mantle dynamics on Cenozoic records of sea-level change [Info sheet - Deciphering the influence of mantle dynamics]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Gareth Roberts
Hot rocks in cold places: Quantifying mantle dynamic impacts on Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution [Info sheet - Hot rocks in cold places]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards
Mapping the Mantle Zoo: Integrating geodynamics, seismology and mineral physics to characterize Earth’s internal chemical reservoirs [Info sheet - Mapping the Mantle Zoo]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Prof Saskia Goes
Continental Uplift and Erosion From Drainage Patterns: Predicting Sedimentary Flux to Passive Margins [Info Sheet - Roberts Drainage Patterns]
Supervisors: Dr Gareth Roberts and Professor Matthew Piggott
Modeling landscape evolution through space and time [Info Sheet - Roberts Landscape Evolution]
Supervisors: Dr Gareth Roberts, Professor Matthew Piggott, Professor Gareth Collins and Dr Alex Whittaker
Simulating impacts onto Saturn’s icy moons and rings [Info sheet - Ice Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis (jkegerreis@seti.org), Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Paul Estrada (paul.r.estrada@nasa.gov)
Simulating impacts onto Earth: from enabling early life to causing extinction [Info sheet - Earth Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis (jkegerreis@seti.org), Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Vincent Eke (v.r.eke@durham.ac.uk)
Learnable optimisation algorithms for inverse problems [Info Sheet - Moseley Inversion]
Supervisor: Dr Ben Moseley
Multi-scale simulation with physics-informed neural networks [Info Sheet - Moseley PINNs]
Supervisor: Dr Ben Moseley
Determining ancient field intensities from chemical remanent magnetisations in rocks and meteorites [Info sheet - Ancient Field Intensities]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, Prof. Dominik Weiss, and Dr. David Heslop (ANU, Canberra)
Using the magnetic signature of former hydrocarbon-rich environments to test for the suitability of carbon Sequestration: A numerical approach [Info sheet - Magnetic Signature of Hydrocarbon-rich Environments]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, and Prof. Wyn Williams (University of Edinburgh)
Machine learning for subsurface multiphase flow in the energy transition [Info sheet - Machine Learning for Multiphase Flow]
Supervisors: Gege Wen