New PhDs at EPCC: developing the next generation of aircraft engines
16 December 2025
These opportunities are part of VECTA, a £17m project between the University of Edinburgh and Rolls-Royce to develop cleaner aviation.
The VECTA EPSRC Strategic Prosperity Partnership is developing the modelling capabilities to virtually design and certify the next generation of aircraft engines. The entire simulation workflow, including the combustion modelling that is the focus of these projects, will need to be Exascale-capable.
Follow the links below for full details about these VECTA PhD opportunities at EPCC.
Coupled fluid-structure simulations of industry relevant gas turbine technologies
Efficient gas turbine technology is crucial for moving towards greener, more fuel efficient, aviation. This PhD will explore the efficient coupling of fluid and structure simulations to enable tackling larger, more complex, systems at reduced time to solution.
Primary Supervisor: Professor Adrian Jackson, EPCC
Read more about this opportunity.
Exascale combustion CFD for industry relevant combustor geometries
Combustors are a crucial part of many technologies including gas turbines, and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a crucial modelling technique used to better understand these components. This PhD will explore the use of number representations, alternative to the dominant FP64, for this workload.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Paul Bartholomew, EPCC
Read more about this opportunity.
VECTA
The Virtual Exascale Calculations Transform Aviation (VECTA) Prosperity Partnership builds on the success of ASiMOV, an earlier Strategic Prosperity Partnership with Rolls-Royce to create and run the world’s first complete gas turbine simulation, and will extend this with both new physical and new computational modelling approaches, focusing on environmentally friendly fuels in future gas turbine engines.
Prosperity Partnerships bring together leading UK-based businesses and universities to develop transformative new technologies, processes and skills with the potential to deliver societal impact and economic growth.
VECTA announcement: New Prosperity Partnership to transform aviation carbon emissions