ProfessorBen Thornber

Turbulence is one of the great unsolved problems of classical physics, a non-linear phenomenon showing extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. It has been resistant to substantial modelling efforts over more than a century. Gaps in our fundamental understanding and modelling of turbulence leads to critical uncertainties in the design of engineering products, the understanding of our oceans and atmosphere and the evolution of astrophysical objects such as stars. It is estimated that more than 25% of the energy used by industry globally is spent either moving fluids or moving objects through fluids. Professor Ben Thornber's research aims to close fundamental gaps in knowledge and predictive capability, with a particular focus on high-speed turbulence.

The resulting understanding can then be used in a diverse range of applications, from reducing drag in road vehicles, calculating lift of aircraft and designing rockets that achieve the required thrust, through to understanding fluid mixing in supernovas.

"Turbulence and high-speed flows are of fundamental importance.

"Turbulence is everywhere - it's what mixes the milk in when we stir our coffee, makes an aeroplane shudder during flight and causes the fuel in a car engine to burn efficiently.

"And an understanding of high-speed flows is essential to designing cars, planes and rockets, for example. Without it we would have no flight, no access to space (so no GPS) and no understanding of the physics of explosions.

"It's surprising how complicated the airflow over an object can be. Currently, using the world's fastest supercomputers, we can only simulate a few centimetres of a civil aircraft wing. At the current rate of increase in computing power we will only be able to simulate a whole wing around the year 2050. So I'm developing software and models to enable us to simulate such things using today's computing power.

"There's real satisfaction in knowing that the algorithms I've developed predict reality accurately - as an engineer, I never get bored with that. However, some of the most interesting projects are where reality behaves unexpectedly - then simulation is an essential means of understanding what's really happening.

"I've been working in this field for more than a decade now, and joined the University of Sydney in mid-2013. I find it a very supportive environment for cutting-edge research. I also have great colleagues here with whom I have established many productive collaborations."

For more information on Professor Ben Thornber's research, see the Sydney Fluid Dynamics Research Group page.