Rainald Lohner
Professor of School of Computational Fluid Dynamics Uses supercomputers to model and simulate complex natural and man-made phenomena. He simulated the World Trade Center bombing and explosions at American Embassy in Nairobi and the Challenger Space Shuttle. His simulations of the flow of blood through arterial junctions have helped surgeons improve the way they join arteries together in heart by- pass surgery. During the Covid-19 pandemic carried out many simulations and experiments to assess air flow and UV radiation and their effect on the transmission and mitigation of pathogens in the built environment. Active areas of research include fluid-structure interaction, optimal shape and process design, the use of graphics cards within field solvers, compressible and incompressible flow solvers, as well as thermal, control and dispersion solvers. Also active in the simulation of large crowds. Strategic areas of the CFD team include: blast-structure interaction, free surface hydrodynamics, contaminant transport, haemodynamics (bloodflow), optimal shape and process design, and computational crowd dynamics.