Research

While cars shift to electric, heavy transport and shipping will still rely on combustion engines. Our research future-proofs these sectors by enabling them to run on clean, zero-carbon fuels like biofuels, hydrogen and ammonia. We use an advanced nanosecond plasma ignition technology to master the combustion of these challenging fuels.

This ensures high efficiency and dramatically slashes harmful emissions. By tackling the unique challenge of clean combustion, we are paving the way for a greener, more sustainable future for all forms of transport.

Keeping electric vehicle batteries at their ideal temperature is crucial for safety, performance, and enabling superfast charging. We develop innovative cooling systems, like heat pipes based hybrid system and capillary driven evaporative cooling system, to precisely maintain this optimal temperature window.

These systems, without significant energy consumption, ensure uniform heat distribution across and within cells, preventing hot spots. Paired with AI-driven algorithms and sensorless techniques to monitor thermal behaviour, this research is building the safer, more efficient, and longer-lasting powertrains essential for the future of electric mobility.

Research in connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) is driving innovation in future mobility systems by integrating advanced control, communication, and artificial intelligence technologies.

Key areas include cloud-assisted distributed vehicle control, enabling real-time coordination across fleets; intelligent decision-making for autonomous robotic systems to enhance safety and efficiency; AI-powered advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for improved situational awareness; and cooperative perception strategies that allow vehicles to share data for better navigation and collision avoidance.

These developments aim to create safer, smarter, and more sustainable transportation networks, transforming how vehicles interact with each other and their environment.

Electric propulsion systems for BEVs offer diverse hardware layouts, varying in the number of motor drives, their placement (central or individual, including in-wheel or on-board options), and transmission configurations such as single- or multi-speed. For HEVs and PHEVs, the range of architectures expands further due to the interaction between internal combustion engines and electric drives, a key focus of current research.

These variations enable extensive simulation, assessment, and optimization of system performance. Additionally, the precise torque control provided by electric motors enhances vehicle drivability and dynamics, offering significant advantages over conventional propulsion systems.

Electric ducted fans (EDFs) are integrated propulsions systems consisting of a multi-bladed fan, a high-power-density electric motor, and a shroud surrounding the fan and motor. These units may be used to provide propulsion for small unmanned drones (UAVs) - efficiently providing thrust at higher speeds than can be achieved by conventional propellers - or can equally be used to simulate full-size turbofan engines in scale-model wind tunnel tests of commercial aircraft.

The wind tunnel facilities have recently been upgraded to accommodate the additional power and cooling requirements of testing these high-power EDFs. Testing EDFs also requires specialist, highly-miniaturised tools and instruments, which are currently being developed for these applications together with our commercial partners.

Environmental protection and sustainability is at the centre of this research area. Our fluid mechanics expertise is focused on solving problem such as air pollution, accidental or deliberate hazardous gas releases, microclimate control, building ventilation and renewable energy production (mainly wind power).

We collaborate with UK and international agencies, meteorologists, architects and industrial engineers. Our research includes a number of methodologies, mostly related to modelling, both experimental and mathematical/numerical modelling. Our main facility is the unique EnFlo Boundary-Layer Wind Tunnel, specifically designed for these applications.

Now an area of advanced research in its own right, we have developed some of the world's most powerful flow measurement probes; these have been used on scientific aircraft, UAVs and high-altitude pseudo satellites, as well as in research wind tunnels around the world.

Our technology extends beyond wind-tunnel applications as well. We have developed what is believed to be the world's smallest thermal anemometry system which has already been used in aircraft and marine applications; an air quality sensor based on pulsed gas-plasma discharges for use in environmental monitoring; an "artificial whisker" so sensitive it can detect forces smaller than the weight of an eyelash, and a high-precision spirometer, developed in collaboration with King's College Hospital, offering new non-intrusive diagnostic capability for medical clinicians.

Research in turbomachinery internal fluid and thermal systems focuses on improving engine efficiency through advanced simulation and design optimization. Current work includes high-precision modelling of secondary flows to refine mechanical configurations and enhance performance.

This area relies heavily on cutting-edge computational techniques supported by high-performance computing resources, enabling accurate analysis of complex flow and thermal interactions. Collaborative efforts with universities and industry partners across Europe integrate experimental data and modelling approaches, driving innovation in turbomachinery technology for more efficient and sustainable propulsion systems.

Turbulence remains one of the last great unsolved problems in the engineering sciences. Developing our understanding of these complex flows allows us to formulate more accurate and robust predictive tools, which may then have applications in areas ranging from aircraft design to weather forecasting, commercial agriculture and even diagnostic medicine.

Fundamental turbulence is a vibrant and growing area of research, encompassing a very broad mix of specialist fields including (amongst others) mathematics, nonlinear dynamics, electronics, acoustics, signal processing and high-power computing, alongside aerodynamics and thermodynamics.

Tyres are at the heart of the dynamic qualities of vehicles and have an impact on the vehicle energy consumption in fact up to seven per cent of the total vehicle energy consumption is caused by tyre rolling resistance. So there is a clear interest and need by automotive engineers and researchers to thoroughly understand the behaviour of tyres.

To achieve this goal under all possible driving and road conditions, a detailed understanding of the physics of the rolling tyre is required. Yet this aspect is not fully understood as the two components that meet in the contact patch – the tyre and the road surface – yield complex, interrelated physical-processes.

In an effort to build the next generation of modern vehicles, it is critical for the automotive industries to develop sophisticated on-board vehicle mechatronics architectures with embedded systems.

With the emergence of electric and hybrid electric vehicles, the adoption of advanced stability and safety control technologies such as torque-vectoring, control allocation, active cruise control, collision avoidance and emergency braking is much easier because of the electric drive motors in such vehicles.

However, precise actuation of these controllers requires accurate information of the vehicle dynamics which can be obtained by sophisticated estimation algorithms. Hence, developing a method of accurately estimating the vehicle states using cost-effective configurations of on-board vehicle sensors and extra information sources is of great importance for automotive industries.

The effects of climate change as well as the growing energy crisis, are promoting a fast transition to renewable energies. This revolution, in the UK, is led largely by wind energy, which has emerged as the most cost-effective and scalable form of clean energy.

The wind power aerodynamics group focuses predominantly on wake flows, and the interaction of turbine generated turbulence with the atmospheric boundary layer. These topics have applications in both engineering and meteorology, and align well with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 7 “Affordable and Clean Energy”.