Cranfield University

Dr Ben Thornber

Lecturer in Computational Fluid Dynamics
Location: Building 83
E: b.j.r.thornber@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0) 1234 754624
Department of Engineering Physics

Current activities

Ben Thornber is currently researching Large Eddy Simulation methods for complex, highly under-resolved industrial flows and compressible turbulent mixing including combustion. The focus is on the development of turbulence modelling and high resolution upwind algorithms specifically designed for large eddy simulation of multi-component turbulent flows at all Mach numbers and their application in complex geometries.

Background

Dr Ben Thornber is a Lecturer in the Department o fEngineering Physics. He completed his PhD at Cranfield University investigating and significantly improving the performance of high resolution methods to investigate the physics of shock induced turbulent mixing. This was selected as the best UK PhD research in the field of flow, turbulence and combustion (2009 ERCOFTAC Osborne Reynolds award). His specialisation is in the development of massively parallel computational fluid dynamics methods capable of simulating high Reynolds number compressible flows in complex geometries. This includes the theoretical and numerical analysis of very high order accurate methods,  large-eddy simulation of multi-species flows including combustion, shock physics, fundamental instabilities and transition, theory and modelling of turbulent mixing, flows with massive separation at high Reynolds number, computational aero-acoustics, parallelisation techniques, and high performance computing.

This work has resulted in publications in high impact factor journals such as the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Journal of Computational Physics, Computers and Fluids, AIAA Journal, International Journal of Numerical Methods in Fluids, Aeronautical Journal and the Journal of Fluids Engineering. He has worked on industrial projects with AWE, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), AMPAC-ISP, MBDA, MOD and SEA.

Selected publications

1. B. Thornber, D. Drikakis, R.J.R. Williams and D.L. Youngs, 'The influence of initial conditions on turbulent mixing due to Richtmyer-Meshkov instability', J. Fluid Mech. 654, pp. 99-139, 2010.
2. B. Thornber, M. Starr and D. Drikakis,'Large eddy simulation of ship airwakes', accepted Aeronaut. J., 2010
3. B.Thornber, D.Drikakis, R.J.R.Williams and D.Youngs, ‘On Entropy Generation and Dissipation of Kinetic Energy in High-Resolution Shock-Capturing Schemes’, J. Comput. Phys. 227, pp. 4853-4872, 2008
4. B.Thornber, A.Mosedale, D.Drikakis, R.J.R.Williams and D.Youngs, ‘An Improved Reconstruction Method of Compressible Flows with Low Mach Number Features’, J. Comput. Phys. 227, pp. 4872-4894, 2008
5. B.Thornber and D.Drikakis, ‘Implicit Large Eddy Simulation of a Deep Cavity Using High-Resolution Methods’, accepted, AIAA Journal, 2008
6. B.Thornber, A.Mosedale and D.Drikakis, ‘On the Implicit Large Eddy Simulation of Homogeneous Decaying Turbulence’, J. Comput. Phys., 226, pp. 1902-2929, 2007
7. B.Thornber and D.Drikakis, ‘Large-Eddy Simulation of Shock-Wave-Induced Turbulent Mixing’, J. Fluid. Eng. ,pp. 1504-1513, 2007
8. B.Thornber and D.Drikakis, ‘Numerical dissipation of upwind schemes in low Mach flow’, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids, doi:10.1002/fld.1628, 2007
9. B.Thornber, D.Drikakis and D.Youngs, ‘Large-eddy simulation of multi-component compressible turbulent flows using high resolution methods’, Comput. Fluids, doi:10.1016/j.compfluid.2007.04.009, 2007
10. J.E.Polk, C.M. Marrese-Reading, B.Thornber, L.Dang, L.K.Johnson and I.Katz, ‘Scanning optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures in hollow cathodes’, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 78:093101, 2007