Dr Zhong-Nan Wang

• PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics, Tsinghua University (joint with Cambridge), 2014
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Zhong-Nan Wang graduated with the BEng degree (1st) in 2009 from Xi’an Jiaotong University, which is in the C9 league and located in Xi’an that has been the capitals of 13 dynasties in the Chinese history. He was selected into a PhD program in Tsinghua University with joint study at the Whittle Laboratory in Cambridge under the framework of Low Carbon Energy University Alliances (Tsinghua, Cambridge and MIT).

His PhD thesis is on developing low-dissipation and high-resolution numerical methods that enable turbulent eddy-resolving simulation with complex geometries for turbomachinery flows. The developed methods were later incorporated in the Rolls-Royce in-house CFD solver to improve the turbulence eddy resolving capability.

After obtaining the PhD degree in 2014, Zhong-Nan spent a short spell in industry and then returned to Cambridge as a research associate at the Department of Engineering in 2015. In the meantime, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Trinity Hall (2015-2019) and Lucy Cavendish College (2019-2020). He gradually directed his research into computational aeroacoustics, particularly on developing high-fidelity eddy-resolving methods to tackle the problem of noise generated by turbulence. He collaborated nationally and internationally on this research direction via participating in two EU projects on installed jet noise and fan broadband noise, and being a visiting research fellow on studying fundamental noise source dynamics and optimisation for jet noise reduction in a CTR summer program at Stanford University.

He was awarded “the best use of ARCHER” the UK national scientific computing service ARCHER (currently ARCHER2) and selected into the faces of HPC as a celebration of diversity in HPC community. He was also actively engaged in disseminating his research to general public and won several scientific photo competitions with his research-generated figures, including the ARCHER Image Competition 2018 and the Cambridge Engineering Photography Competition 2020.

In 2020, Zhong-Nan joined the University of Birmingham as a lecturer and is actively involved in developing the Birmingham Aerospace Engineering Programme. In addition to the teaching activities, he is currently setting up a research group and enthusiastically developing his research with particular interest in combining hybrid RANS-LES methods with data-driven approach to predict, understand and reduce turbulence-generated noise.

• Airframe Design and Flight Dynamics (2nd year undergraduate)
• Computational Fluid Mechanics (3rd year undergraduate)
• Individual Research Projects (3rd year undergraduate)
• Group Research Projects (4th year undergraduate)

PhD topics to supervise

• Hierarchical geometry and turbulence modelling of turbomachinery flows
• High-fidelity simulation of turbulence-generated noise, particularly for fan and jet noise
• Data-driven analysis of aerodynamic noise sources
• Data-driven modelling of turbulent flows

I am accepting PhD students and postdoctoral research fellow all year around. The scholarship could be provided via the following routes:

• School/College scholarship (Home/EU students)
• CSC scholarship (Chinese students)

Learn more about international scholarship routes.

Please email me if you are interested in pursuing a PhD or a postdoc project with me.

Research interests

• High-fidelity eddy-resolving simulation, in particular, LES and its hybrids.
• Unsteady aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of jet and turbomachinery, e.g. installed jet noise and fan broadband noise.
• Data-driven analysis and modelling of aerodynamic sound sources and turbulent flows, especially from a dynamical system perspective.

• Member of UK Turbulence Consortium (UKTC)
• Member of ASME, AIAA, and APS
• Life Member of Cambridge Philosophical Society
• Visiting academic fellow, University of Cambridge