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Ben Thornber

School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Ben Thornber

Ben Thornber

School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

My research group focuses on fundamental challenges in flow, turbulence and combustion. Our key contributions have been in the development of accurate and fast governing models and numerical methods for unsteady, turbulent flows. Once developed, we apply these approaches to deliver insight into complex flows ranging from rotorcraft to scramjets, wind turbines to platooning vehicles.

Contact info

  • b.thornber@qub.ac.uk
  • +44 (0)28 9097 4122

Research Interests

I am open to applications for PhD projects in governing models and numerical methods for unsteady turbulent flows, the fundamentals of high speed turbulent flows relevant to high speed propulsion and explosions or implosion, and finally predicting challenging aerodynamic flows such as full wind farm calculations, helicopters and automotive aerodynamics. I would like to encourage in particular female candidates or candidates from any other underrepresented minorities.

Make a PhD enquiry


Public outreach & key achievements

I'm a strong believer in outreach and have initiated, organised and participated in outreach activities at the Science Museum, London (featured on New Scientist online), appeared on ABC breakfast news, ABC Radio and written articles for The Conversation.


Research students

PhD Title Numerical Heat Transfer Predictions for the DLR LUMEN Demonstrator
Name Miss Clara Morris
Country German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Germany
Years of Study  2022-2025
   
PhD Title Immersed Boundary Method For High Reynolds Number Computation Of Rotorcraft Aerodynamics
Name Mr Jack Park
Country Australia
Years of Study 2020-2024
   
PhD Title Understanding the growth of hydrodynamic instabilities in inertial confinement fusion
Name Mr Bradley Pascoe
Country Australia
Years of Study 2020-2024

Alumni: Where are they now

PhD Title Direct Numerical Simulation of Shock-Induced Turbulent Mixing with High-Resolution Methods
Name Dr Michael Groom
Country Australia
Years of Study  2016-2020
Current position Early Research Career Fellow at Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney Australia
   
PhD Title Implicit LES of turbulent compressible high-speed flows with transverse jet injection
Name Dr Zeeshan Rana
Country United Kingdom
Years of Study 2008-2010
Current position Senior Lecturer at Cranfield University, UK
   
PhD Title A Hybrid Computational Fluid Dynamics Method for Unsteady Simulation of the Ship-Helicopter Dynamic Interface
Name Dr Daniel Linton
Country Australia
Years of Study 2015-2019
Current position AMSL Aero

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Stranmillis Road
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E-mail: schooloffice.mae@qub.ac.uk
Tel:+44 (0)28 9097 4147

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