PhD Studentship: Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award

Modelling Rupture of CO2 Pipelines

Department of Chemical Engineering

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is considered to be the most effective
way of tackling the effects of global warming. This will require the
large-scale capture, transportation and storage of CO2. In the case of
coal fired power generation plants, pressurised pipelines are considered
to be the most practical, and possibly the only option for transporting
the captured CO2 for subsequent storage.

Given the enormous amounts of CO2 contained in such pipelines (typically
several million tonnes), a prior knowledge of the release rate and
subsequent dispersion in the event of pipeline rupture is central to
assessing the failure impact. CO2 is toxic and when inhaled in large
concentrations can lead to asphyxiation.

This exciting PhD project aims to extend our award winning work
(http://www.ucl. ac.uk/chemeng/ staff/mahgerefte h) to develop a computer
based model for predicting the failure consequences of CO2 pipelines.
The project carried out in close collaboration with a major industrial
partner is multidisciplinary involving a variety of subjects including,
fluid mechanics, mathematics, heat transfer, quantitative risk
assessment and computing. The experience gained is expected to equip the
prospective PhD graduate with job opportunities in a variety of
industrial sectors particularly in the oil and gas industry.

The successful candidate will be an outstanding First Class Chemical
Engineering or Mathematics graduate (although other relevant disciplines
will be considered) preferably with computing skills. The funding covers
full tuition fees plus maintenance over three years and is open to
suitably qualified overseas students.

UCL is consistently classed amongst the top Universities in the world.
The UCL Chemical Engineering department in particular received the
highest research rating in the most recent Government funded Research
Assessment Exercise placing it amongst the only three such departments
in the UK.

C.V’s should be sent either by post or email as soon as possible to:
Professor Haroun Mahgerefteh
Department of Chemical Engineering
University College London
Torrington Place
London WC1E 7JE

Tel: 020 7679 3835
Email: h.mahgerefteh@ ucl.ac.uk
http://www.ucl. ac.uk/chemeng/staff/mahgerefteh