WELCOME: RESEARCH AT CITY
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES ENERGY AND TRANSPORT CENTRE
FUEL FOR THOUGHT The Energy and Transport Centre’s research focuses upon improving the efficiency of transportation, compression and energy-generation processes. The Energy and Transport Centre’s core activity is research into internal combustion engines and, in particular, the fluid dynamics in fuel injection systems, the fuel spray mixing and in-cylinder flow and combustion processes for both petrol and diesel engines.
Cavitation is the formation of vapour bubbles in a flowing liquid in regions where the liquid pressure falls below its vapour pressure. Understanding the generally undesirable implications of bubble collapse has been a major technical challenge in both engineering and medicine. The Centre’s experimental work is focused on the application of laser diagnostics in optical engines and fuel systems, while computational work is concerned with the development of advanced fluid dynamics codes that are used to predict the extent and intensity of cavitation in fuel injectors. The Centre has attracted more than £2.5M of industrial funding from businesses including Nissan, Toyota, MAN B&W, BMW, Siemens Automotive, Caterpillar UK, Caterpillar Fuel Systems and Delphi Diesel Systems. This support has allowed the development of some of the most advanced computation models used by research and development departments worldwide.
Professor Manolis Gavaises, the Director of the Energy and Transport Centre, says: “Our work on cavitation has resulted in findings that have influenced the design of mechanical components where cavitation takes place. The team has been the first to perform experiments to validate contemporary models.” In 2011 the Centre was awarded £1.3M by the Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust to support the establishment of the International Institute for Cavitation Research with headquarters at City. Developments in this area have been summarised in Flow and Combustion in Reciprocating Engines (2009. Springer-Verlag), co-edited by Professor Dinos Arcoumanis at City and Professor Takeyuki Kamimoto of the Institute of Technologists, Japan. Professor Arcoumanis is also the founder of the International Journal of Engine Research.
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