Associate Professor Ben Thornber

Biography

Associate Professor Ben Thornber graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and Management Techniques from the University of Edinburgh in 2001. He then undertook a Masters in Space Studies at the International Space University, including a period of work at NASA-JPL. Deciding to focus on aerodynamics, he moved to Imperial College to undertake an MSc in Computational Fluid Dynamics. This led to a position in the Aerothermodynamics department at the European Space Agency. Ben returned to academia at Cranfield University in 2004 to undertake a PhD in Compressible Turbulent Mixing, where he continued research in computational fluid dynamics methods and applications as a Research Fellow and then Lecturer collaborating with a wide range of international engineering organisations. In 2011 he spent 5 months at the University of Sydney as an International Visiting Research Fellow, and returned in 2013 to lecture in Aeronautical Engineering (Aerodynamics) in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, and is currently the Sub-Dean (Research Management) and Associate Professor for the faculty. He has more than twenty international journal publications, and has collaborated with companies such as Jaguar Land-Rover, Ricardo, DSTO, LLNL, EADS, ESA, ARA, AWE, ITER, AMPAC-ISP, Bluebear, Moog, Reaction Engines Ltd, Red Bull Technology, Williams F1 and MBDA.

Research Interest

Associate Professor Ben Thornber's research in computational fluid dynamics aims to develop more efficient and accurate ways of simulating the flow of gases and liquids. The resulting understanding can then be used in a diverse range of applications, from reducing drag in road vehicles, calculating lift of aircraft and designing rockets that achieve the required thrust, through to understanding fluid mixing in supernovas. "Turbulence and high-speed flows are of fundamental importance. "Turbulence is everywhere - it's what mixes the milk in when we stir our coffee, makes an aeroplane shudder during flight and causes the fuel in a car engine to burn efficiently. "And an understanding of high-speed flows is essential to designing cars, planes and rockets, for example. Without it we would have no flight, no access to space (so no GPS) and no understanding of the physics of explosions. "It's surprising how complicated the airflow over an object can be. Currently, using the world's fastest supercomputers, we can only simulate a few centimetres of a civil aircraft wing. At the current rate of increase in computing power we will only be able to simulate a whole wing around the year 2050. So I'm developing software and models to enable us to simulate such things using today's computing power. "There's real satisfaction in knowing that the algorithms I've developed predict reality accurately - as an engineer, I never get bored with that. However, some of the most interesting projects are where reality behaves unexpectedly - then simulation is an essential means of understanding what's really happening. "I've been working in this field for more than a decade now, and joined the University of Sydney in mid-2013. I find it a very supportive environment for cutting-edge research. I also have great colleagues here, who I'm looking forward to collaborating with."