Contact Dr Liang Yang

Areas of expertise

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computing, Simulation & Modelling
  • Renewable Energy

Background

Liang leads the research and teaching activities in sustainable marine energy and digital twin techniques. He earned his PhD in Computational Mechanics from Swansea University and has dual MSc degrees in Computational Mechanics from Swansea University and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He is interested in addressing complex multiphysics and multiscale energy engineering problems using multicore computing architecture.

Research areas include:

Sustainable ocean: Hydrodynamic analysis, numerical wave tank and wave tank testing, funded by British Council, Supergen ORE, Innovate UK, Department for Transport (DfT).

Digital twin techniques: meshing technique, physics and data-driven approaches for

Multiphysics modelling: fluid-structure-radiation interaction

Multiscale modelling: finite element solver for over 2000^3 size problem on HPC, Archer2 computing resources

Multicore computing: GPU accelerated LBM solver, to be deployed on Archer2, funded by eCSE grant

Meshing tool: mesh generation from CAD and Images, funded by HEIF.

Software: lead or co-lead development of Cranfield Numerical Wave Tank, Taichi-LBM3D, PyEFEM, Wyvern, Meshing.

Selected talks:

Neural network control of fully-differentiable fluid-rigid structure interaction problem, Coupled2023, Chania, Crete, Greece, June 2023.

Meshing Contest, The SIAM International Meshing Roundtable Workshop 2023, Amsterdam, March, 2023.

GPU accelerated multiphase flow, particle and solid interaction solver in one-fluid formulation, November, Japan, ICCCI2022.

Stabilisation of floating offshore wind platform through hydrofoil. Computational Science Engineering, Data Science & Artificial Intelligence by Total R&D, October 2022.

Recent development for voxel-based lattice Boltzmann and finite element solver on multi-core CPU/GPUs. Image based simulation for industry 2022 (IBSim-4i), London, October 2022.

Deep neural network control of differentiable fluid-structure interaction problem, First Cranfield University AI Conference, July, Cranfield, 2022.

A CFD-Radiation model for the simulation of UV photoreactors for drinking water treatment, ECCOMAS Congress, June, Oslo, 2022

Working with nature: retrofitting solutions for reducing mooring line loads. WindEurope Conference, April, Bibao, 2022

Wyvern: A high-fidelity solver for coupled fluid-radiation-particle problems. The 8th Asian Particle Technology Symposium, Osaka, October 2021.

An explicit finite element method for Navier-Stokes-Brinkman equations. Image based simulation for industry 2021 (IBSim-4i), London, October 2021.

An explicit finite element method for Navier-Stokes-Brinkman equations. Computational Science Engineering, Data Science & Artificial Intelligence by Total R&D, October 2021.

Unified computational framework for floating structure and wave interaction. Computational Science Engineering, Data Science & Artificial Intelligence by Total R&D, October 2019, Serris, France.

Keynote: Adaptive modelling for multiphase flow through debris bed with boiling, The University of Tokyo, March, 2019.

Bridging the gap between the computational fluid, solid and multibody dynamics. State key laboratory of hydroscience and engineering, Tsinghua University, March 2019.

Bridging the gap between the computational fluid, solid and multibody dynamics. Computational Geoscience seminars, department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, March 2019.

Three-fluids model for multiphase flow in porous media with phase change, with application to debris bed cooling. Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), October, 2018.

Massively parallel and next generation solver for aerodynamics and aeroacoustics. Imperial-Tsinghua-COMAC science week, September, 2018.

Three-fluids model for multiphase flow in porous media with phase change. 3rd UKFN Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics SIG, September, 2018.

PyEFEM: Highly parallel python based framework for flow and fluid-structure interaction problem. Department of Computing Research Associate Symposium, Imperial College, June, 2018.

Research opportunities

Dr Liang Yang is accepting students for self-funded PhD in the following two research areas

Marine Energy:

Wave devouring propulsion;

stabilisation of floating offshore platform;

AI and Digitalisation:

3D meshing techniques;

Massively parallel physics solver on HPCs and its acceleration.

Current activities

Research supervision:

Z. Shen, 2022- Space-time evolution mechanism of turbulent structure in waterjet and optimal design of waterjet, Cranfield-Jiangsu

E. Farah 2021- Fluid-structure coupling for the stability and energy performance of a wind turbine with hyper-flexible blades

J. Xing, 2020-, Advanced simulation and control of floating wind turbine platform

Current projects:

PI, MPI implementation of open-source fully-differentiable multiphase lattice Boltzmann code, 03/2023-05/2024.

PI, Commercialisation of novel floating wind technology, 11/2023-07/2024.

Previous projects:

PI, G-TRANSPORT: Greening Transportation of Cargo Ships via Hybrid Wave Propulsion, 04/2023-09/2023.

PI, Image to meshing technology, 02/2023-07/2023.

PI, MPI implementation of open-source fully-differentiable multiphase lattice Boltzmann code, 03/2023-05/2024.

PI, Direct numerical simulation of flapping foil propulsion, 01/2023-06/2023, Computational Time from UK Turbulence Consortium.

co-I, Solar2Wave: Design of floating solar farms to overcome tough ocean waves, 02/2023-01/2024.

PI, Feasibility study of hybrid propulsion for unmanned surface vehicle for environmental monitoring. 04/2022-03/2023.

PI, Wind turbine feasibility study project. 08/2022-11/2022 (Consultancy).

PI, 80,000 CPUh Instant Access to ARCHER, Massively parallel simulation of Navier-Stokes-Brinkman system on grayscale Micro-CT images. 10/2020-05/2021.

PI: EPSRC Supergen ORE ECR Fund, Parametric study for flapping foil system for harnessing wave energy. 11/2020-09/2021.

PI: Minimising the tsunami impact on coastal communities of developing countries funded by QR Global Challenges Research Fund. 10/2019-07/2020.

Previous supervision:

S. Santhosh, MSc, 2022, Experimental study of hydrofoil for marine propulsion

Y. Wang, MSc, 2022, Design of new offshore floating solar platform

A. Gonzalez Acha, MSc, 2022, Optimisation of wind farm power generation via wake steering using actuator disk model

K. Wani, MSc, 2022, CFD analysis of motionless wind turbine, AeroMINE

O. Reid, MSc, 2022, Optimisation of Savonius turbine using high-fidelity CFD

S. Surwade, MSc, 2022, Re-balancing lift for battery electric vehicle using CFD simulation and iterative design development

A. Shaaban, MSc, 2022, Numerical analysis of vortex bladeless wind turbine

Z. Ahmed, MSc, 2021, Feasibility study to charge an electric vehicle in motion.

F. Topal, MSc, 2021, Laboratory-scale modelling of irregular waves and its interaction with submersible floating platform.

A. Koutras, MSc, 2021, Laboratory-scale physical modelling of floating wind turbine platform and its novel stabilisation technique.

A. Dell'Orto, MSc, 2021, Numerical modelling of floating wind turbine platform and its novel stabilisation technique.

X. Xu, MSc, 2021, CFD-Radiation Modelling for UVC Disinfection of Drinking Water.

H. Syed, MSc, 2020, Response of double hinged platform using potential flow solver.

J. Xing, MSc, 2020, CFD modelling oil spill response under fast current.

L. Balazi, MSc, 2020, Best thesis on the Advanced Mechanical Engineering MSc. Massively parallel simulation of Navier-Stokes-Brinkman system on grayscale Micro-CT images, joint supervision with Total Geosciences Research Centre.

L. Abadie, MSc, 2020, Pitch and heave motion for thrust generation at low Reynolds numbers.

T. Chatin, MSc, 2019 CFD Modelling and optimisation of a Horizontal plate Wave Energy Converter.

Other roles:

Member: PRIMaRE Committee

Member for Rapid Assistance in Modelling the Pandemic: RAMP

Clients

EPSRC

Innovate UK

Archer2

Department for Transport (DfT)

Connected Places Catapult

British Council

Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF)

Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF)

Total

Autonomous devices Ltd

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers