Scholarship details

Study levels

Research and PhD

Student type

Future students

Study area

Engineering

Eligibility criteria

Academic performance

What you'll receive

The successful applicants will receive:

  • a tax-free living allowance of $33,637 per annum for three years, full-time, indexed annually
  • a six-month extension to the scholarship is also possible, subject to approval by QUT
  • a tuition fee offset/sponsorship, covering the cost of your tuition fees for the first four full-time equivalent years of your doctoral studies
  • Overseas Student Healthcare Cover (Single only) for international students during their doctoral studies.

Eligibility

Essential

  • You need to meet the entry requirements for QUT's Doctor of Philosophy, including any English language requirements.
  • Completion of a bachelor (honours) degree or master degree by research in:
    • civil engineering
    • geotechnical engineering
    • petroleum engineering
    • mechanical engineering
    • applied mathematics
    • applied physics
    • other related disciplines.
  • Demonstrated knowledge in at least one of the following areas:
    • porous media flow
    • computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
    • pore-network modelling
    • lattice Boltzmann method
    • microfluidic fabrication and experiments
    • 3D printing
    • machine learning.
  • Demonstrated programming skills (Matlab, C++, or Python).

Desired

  • Demonstrated ability to work independently and to formulate and tackle research problems.
  • Demonstrated academic research experience as evidenced by publications in high quality research journals or conferences.

How to apply

The first step is to email Dr Zhongzheng Wang (in English), and should include:

  • a cover letter stating the reasons why you are interested in the position, addressing the eligibility requirements, and in what way the research project corresponds to your interests and educational background
  • a CV
  • your degree certificate or equivalent
  • your English results, and other documents you wish to be considered (grade transcripts, contact information for your references, letters of recommendation, etc).

What happens next?

  • The assessment of potential candidates is made primarily based on academic results from bachelor degree and master degree studies.
  • Short-listed applicants will undergo an interview process.
  • If supported to apply, you will then submit an expression of interest (EOI) following the advice at how to apply for a research degree.
  • In your EOI, nominate Dr Zhongzheng Wang as your proposed principal supervisor, and copy the link to this scholarship web page into question two of the Financial Details section.

About the scholarship

Background

Two PhD positions are available in the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT, Brisbane, Australia), related to fluid transport processes in porous media.

QUT is a major Australian university with a global outlook and a 'real world' focus. We are one of the nation’s fastest growing research universities. The students will be part of the Faculty of Engineering.

The PhD projects will be supervised by Dr Zhongzheng Wang as part of a research project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Dr Wang is a recognised researcher who has secured more than AUD $1M competitive funding and has been consistently producing impactful and high-quality research. He is a member of AFMS, InterPore, LAMSES, and an affiliated investigator at Centre for Biomedical Technologies.

Project description

Flow in porous media is a ubiquitous phenomenon and relevant to many engineering processes, ranging from large scale carbon geosequestration and hydrogen subsurface storage to microscale applications such as fuel cells and fluid manipulation in microfluidic devices. Due to its strong relevance to reducing carbon emission and energy transition, and the presence of rich physical mechanisms at pore scale, understanding fluid flow processes in porous media is practically important, fundamentally interesting, and scientifically challenging.

PhD1: Cyclic multiphase flow in porous media

As a PhD student, you will address yet-to-be-solved multiphase flow challenges related to the flow characteristics during cyclic injection processes using microfluidic experiments and pore-scale modelling. You will gain access to the advanced microfluidic fabrication facilities as well as high performance computing (HPC) facilities at QUT.

PhD2: Pore-network modelling of reactive transport

As a PhD student, you will develop efficient pore-network modelling algorithm that allows accurate simulation of fluid transport processes in porous media coupled with chemical reactions (e.g. dissolution and precipitation). The algorithm will be validated firstly against microfluidic experiments and then applied to highlight the role of reaction during fluid flow in porous media.

Duties

The main duties of doctoral students are to devote themselves to their research studies which includes participating in research projects and actively engaging in group meetings, presenting your research work via reports and disseminating your research findings through conference and journal publications. The work can also include teaching and other departmental duties.

You will be encouraged to come up with your own research ideas.

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