Queens’ Engineering student recognised at prestigious PhD competition
Dante McGrath, a final year engineering PhD student, has been awarded a prize at the 2022 Osborne Reynolds PhD Competition. The competition was organised by the University of Manchester and the UK Pilot Centre for the European Research Community On Flow, Turbulence and Combustion (ERCOFTAC).
The competition featured presentations by some of the UK's brightest newly graduated and soon-to-graduate PhD students in fluid mechanics. The competition and programme are named in honour of Queens’ alumnus Osborne Reynolds, one of the UK's most influential fluid mechanists.
Dante was awarded the prize with one of the best three presentations for his research into the effect of fuel droplets on laminar flame propagation. His research involved examining the physics and chemistry of fuel sprays typical of practical combustion systems, such as gas turbine engines and industrial furnaces. His research contributes an experimental dataset characterising droplet-laden flame propagation, benefitting the validation of models predicting the performance of spray combustion systems.
"The better we understand how sprays burn, using numerical models and validation experiments, the better equipped we are to design combustion systems that are clean and efficient. With society likely to rely on combustion in the near future, scientists and engineers have a responsibility to tackle this grand challenge.
"I am grateful to the judging panel for this prize and to the organisers of the Osborne Reynolds Day programme. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of presenting my research amongst my peers.
I wish to give special thanks to my supervisor Prof. Simone Hochgreb and also to Dr. Luming Fan (Queens’, 2014), both of whom were instrumental to my development as an early-career researcher."
With this prize, Dante has been nominated to represent the UK at the da Vinci competition, to be hosted by ERCOFTAC later this year.
He will also present at the 39th International Symposium on Combustion, the world's largest meeting on combustion science.
"The pandemic deprived many students of the physical platform to communicate our research. At the tail end of my PhD journey, I consider it a privilege to present in front of fellow fluids researchers, both in the UK and abroad. I wish to thank Queens’ College and the Perry Fund for supporting me in this endeavour."
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