PhD Studentship: Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award
Modelling Rupture of CO2 Pipelines
Department of Chemical Engineering

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is considered to be the most effective way of tackling the effects of global warming. This will require the large-scale capture, transportation and storage of CO2. In the case of coal fired power generation plants, pressurised pipelines are considered to be the most practical, and possibly the only option for transporting the captured CO2 for subsequent storage.

Given the enormous amounts of CO2 contained in such pipelines (typically several million tonnes), a prior knowledge of the release rate and subsequent dispersion in the event of pipeline rupture is central to assessing the failure impact. CO2 is toxic and when inhaled in large concentrations can lead to asphyxiation.

This exciting PhD project aims to extend our award winning work (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/chemeng/staff/mahgerefteh) to develop a computer based model for predicting the failure consequences of CO2 pipelines. The project carried out in close collaboration with a major industrial partner is multidisciplinary involving a variety of subjects including, fluid mechanics, mathematics, heat transfer, quantitative risk assessment and computing. The experience gained is expected to equip the prospective PhD graduate with job opportunities in a variety of industrial sectors particularly in the oil and gas industry.

The successful candidate will be an outstanding First Class Chemical Engineering or Mathematics graduate (although other relevant disciplines will be considered) preferably with computing skills. The funding covers full tuition fees plus maintenance over three years and is open to suitably qualified overseas students.

UCL is consistently classed amongst the top Universities in the world. The UCL Chemical Engineering department in particular received the highest research rating in the most recent Government funded Research Assessment Exercise placing it amongst the only three such departments in the UK.

C.V's should be sent either by post or email as soon as possible to:
Professor Haroun Mahgerefteh
Department of Chemical Engineering
University College London
Torrington Place
London WC1E 7JE

Tel: 020 7679 3835
Email: h.mahgerefteh[ at ]ucl.ac.uk
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/chemeng/staff/mahgerefteh