Fully Funded SUSPRS PhD Scholarship: Modelling and Assessment of Nearshore Breaker Bar Response to Incoming Waves

Funding providers: Swansea University Strategic Partnership Research Scholarships (SUSPRS) with Université Grenoble Alpes, France

Subject areas: Coastal Engineering

Project start date: 

• 1 October 2024 (Enrolment open from mid-September)

Project description: 

This is a joint PhD programme between Swansea University and Université Grenoble Alpes.

Sand bars are a prominent feature of nearshore zone in coastal seas. They can cause coastal flooding and erosion when the trough is close to the coastline, can induce navigation and bathing hazards and contribute to hazardous rip current generation. Nearshore bars are dynamic features that strongly linked to wave breaking and associated sediment transport phenomenon. They evolve and migrate at a range of timescales, which makes them a key contributor medium to long term morphodynamic evolution of coastlines. Understanding the evolution of nearshore bars and the ability to accurately simulate bar dynamics is a key requirement of nearshore morphodynamic predictions. Although physical process dynamics involving the evolution of nearshore bars have been significantly improved during the last decade, knowledge gaps still remain. Numerical modelling can be used to fill those gaps however, the current coastal hydro-morphodynamic models are not capable of capturing bar dynamics accurately as a result of lack of accurate wave breaking and sediment transport formulations in them. This project will improve and validate the bar simulation capability of a globally used numerical coastal morphodynamic modelling system by introducing new wave breaking and sediment transport formulations. The primary aim of the project is to investigate bar dynamics and their impacts on short- to medium-term coastal morphodynamic change using the numerical model, thus providing scientific evidence for sustainable coastal management.

The project will be jointly supervised by Professor Harshinie Karunarathna and Professor Dominic Reeve from the Faculty of Science and Engineering of Swansea University and Professor Eric Berthelemy and Dr Julien Chauchat of the Doctoral School of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences (ED STEP) at Grenoble Alps University.

The student will spend approximately 50% of the time in Swansea and the remaining 50% in Grenoble. In Swansea, the student will be affiliated to the Energy and Environment Research Group (EERG) of the Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE). EERG will provide coastal morphodynamics and numerical modelling expertise while FSE will provide high-performance computing facilities to the project. In Grenoble, the student will be affiliated to the Doctoral School of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences (ED STEP) who will provide expertise in fluid dynamics, especially wave breaking-associated turbulence.

Eligibility

Candidates must hold an MEng degree in Civil Engineering with 1st or 2:1, MSc in Civil Engineering, Coastal Engineering, Coastal Dynamics, Computational Engineering (or Non-UK equivalent as defined by Swansea University). If you are eligible to apply for the scholarship but do not hold a UK degree, you can check our comparison entry requirements. Please note that you may need to provide evidence of your English Language proficiency.

Applicants must hold a master's qualification to comply with Grenoble’s admissions requirements.

This scholarship is open to candidates of any nationality.

Please visit our website for more information on eligibility.