Collaboration with the University of Manchester

On 9-13 September, 2013 the School of MACE run CPD Course on Advanced Methods in CFD led by Drs Sergey Utyuzhnikov and Imran Afgan. The Course attracted 21 delegates. Most of participants, who attended the course, were from Russian leading research and educational centres such as Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, Russian Academy of Sciences and Central Institute of Aero/hydrodynamics (TsAGI). It was the second consecutive year that researchers from those Russian centres were delegated to our School for a CFD-based CPD course. The course also attracted trainees from Spain, Pakistan, Turkey, Poland and universities from the UK. The course received a highly positive feedback from the delegates.

This advanced course covered most hot topics in modern CFD. The participants were highly impressed by high standard of the lectures and friendly relaxed atmosphere. The group had an opportunity to attend lectures and participate in discussions on turbulence modelling in person with such experts as Professor Brian Launder and his colleagues whom they have already known from publications.

As was indicated in Prof Launder’s retrospective lecture, it was here in Manchester Professor Osborne Reynolds laid the foundations of Turbulence Theory a century and half ago. According to the participants, the link with history of science and the University, where the first steps in turbulence modelling were made, remarkably contributed to the overall experience.

The course consisted of the theoretical and practical parts. The latter part was focused on the open source Code_Saturne supported by EDF. It was held in the newly open Hartree Centre belonging to the Daresbury National Lab. The delegates had a unique opportunity to see and use both the Blue Gene Q supercomputer (Blue Joule), number one in the UK, and stunning visualisation centre. The course itself was delivered by our colleagues from Manchester, EDF R&D and the Hartree Centre. It is worth noting that the quality of the tutorials fully matched the level of the ultramodern facility used.