Investigating the fluid dynamics and heat transfer aspect of the ultra-high temperature thermal energy storage technology being developed by Dr Adam Robinson in the Institute of Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh.

I'd be designing and evaluating the use of heat pumps to charge the storage core and to recirculate waste heat to maintain the core temperature. I'd also be investigating if using blade cooling in the heat pump results in acceptably low thermodynamic losses, and more generally investigating the aerodynamic considerations and heat transfer in the heat exchangers. I'd be designing a valve to switch between using hot combustion products in the power generating gas turbine, and nitrogen heated from the storage core. I'd also be investigating the reheat system used in the power generating gas turbine.

The work would involve writing computer code to take account of the additional effects of heat transfer and structural considerations in computational fluid dynamic simulations. Mathematical models of the various system components would be developed and compared with experimental data obtained from a scaled down test rig of the thermal energy store. It would also be desirable to develop a numerical model of the complete system in order to perform transient analyses.