Sound and Vibration - Keele University
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Welcome to

the School of Computing and Mathematics

Keele University


School of Computing and Mathematics

Sound and Vibration

Sound and Vibration

Sound and Vibration is a major research area in Applied Mathematics within the Applied Mathematics group at Keele. It involves Professor C. J. Chapman and Dr Maria A. Heckl, together with their research students, as well as academic and industrial collaborators throughout the world. The broad aim of the research is improvement of the environment by reduction of unwanted noise.

The physical phenomena of sound and vibration are intimately linked. A classic case of their interaction occurs when a structure is surrounded by a fluid, such as water or air. For example, a sound wave impinging on a structure immersed in a heavy fluid, will induce vibrations of that structure. Conversely, a structure vibrating in air will excite sound waves.

The research topics of the Sound and Vibration team have important engineering applications, for example:

Aeroengine noise (Chapman). The fan blades of an aeroengine are potent sources of sound, especially when struck by gusts in the incident air stream.

Fluid-structure interaction (Chapman). The forced vibrations of engineering structures, e.g. the hull of a ship or domestic and industrial machinery, lead to complicated energy flows, both near the structures and at remote distances.

Combustion noise (Heckl). Combustion in a confined space can create very intense sound, which in turn creates excessive structural vibrations; this is a major problem for the design of low-pollution gas turbine engines.

Squeal noise (Heckl). Friction between two bodies sliding against one another can create vibrations; this, in turn, leads to intense sound waves, such as the annoying squeal well-known from brakes or from a train going round a curve.

A recent major success of the group, achieved by Dr Heckl, is the award of a Marie Curie Network grant, worth over four million Euros, by the European Commission under Framework 7. The project is called "Limit cycles of thermo-acoustic oscillations in gas turbine combustors" (acronym LIMOUSINE) and places Keele at the hub of a European-wide network of combustion noise research; it will support considerable post-graduate research in the coming years. Professor Chapman holds a Royal Society International Project grant for the project 'Wave propagation in fluid-loaded elastic cylindrical shells', involving collaboration with Professor S.V. Sorokin in Denmark. Professor Chapman and Dr Heckl are both members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Sound and Vibration, the world's premier research journal in this research area.

Potential research students who would like an informal discussion about possible PhD topics are welcome to get in touch with Professor Chapman or Dr Heckl directly; alternatively, they can contact the post-graduate tutor Professor Fu.