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Employment History

Primary Appointments
July-September 1988 Rolls-Royce & Associates (Derby)
Modelling corrosion reactions in environments with a low oxygen concentration
Summer 1990
Summer 1991
FMC (Old Trafford, Manchester)
Experimental work on polymer decomposition and industrial testing procedures for fire retardant polymers.
1st April 1994 to 30 March 1997 Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Joint appointment in the Departments of Fuel & Energy and Applied Mathematics, The University of Leeds.
"Evaluation of Fire Retardants for Polymer Combustion"
Source of Funding: Science and Engineering Research Council. (GR/J43240)
This project involved modelling the ignition, and subsequent behaviour, of thermoplastics in radiative ignition tests, in particular the cone calorimeter. The effect of solid-phase active fire retardants in reducing flammability was also investigated.

Supervisors: Dr. A.C. McIntosh ( Fuel & Energy) and Professor J. Brindley ( Applied Mathematics).
1st April 1997 to 30th November 1997 Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Joint appointment in the Departments of Fuel & Energy and Applied Mathematics, The University of Leeds.
"Char-Forming Processes for Fire Retardancy in Polymeric Materials".
Source of Funding: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. (GR/L28142)
The objective of this project was to develop and evaluate simple kinetic models for char-formation, and char-oxidation, in textiles, and to develop mathematical models for the combustion of such materials in standard flammability tests. This involved collaboration with Professor Horrocks (Bolton), the leading UK Group on Textile Flame Retardants.

Supervisors: Dr. A.C. McIntosh ( Fuel & Energy) and Professor J. Brindley ( Applied Mathematics).
21st November 1997 to 20th November 1998 Royal Society of London Postdoctoral Fellow (Overseas)
Department of Mathematics, University of Auckland, New Zealand (21/11/97-31/05/98)

Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
. (01/06/98-20/11/98)
"Mathematical Modelling of the Spatially Non-Uniform Ignition of Polymeric Materials".
Source of Funding: Royal Society of London Overseas Fellowship.
During this fellowship I worked on the following projects:
Heterogeneously Catalysed Combustion in a Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor: A non-isothermal dynamical systems model was developed which included adsorption, desorption, and reaction on a catalytic surface. It was shown that reactor efficiency can be increased by a factor of $10^{3}$ by the correct choice of initial conditions.
Polymer Combustion: Effects of Flame Emissivity: The effect of soot formation upon the flammability of polymeric materials was investigated.
Microwave Heating of Porous Solids: The phenomena of multiplicity in class A geometries was investigated in a model in which microwave penetration decayed exponentially with distance.
Radiative Ignition of Combustible Materials: The spatially non-uniform ignition of materials undergoing non-flaming thermal degradation was investigated. Both the critical storage problem and the critical assembly problem were considered.

Research links with Dr. X.D. Chen (Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand) and Dr. E. Balakrishnan (Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Sultan Qaboos University) were established.

Supervisor: Professor G.C. Wake.
23rd November 1998 to 5th February 1999 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
"Catalytic and radiative combustion".
Source of Funding: University of Canterbury Research Grant.
During this grant I worked on:
  1. Heterogeneous combustion in a continuously stirred tank reactor.
  2. Microwave Heating of Porous Solids.
Supervisor: Professor G.C. Wake.
15th February 1999 to 30th April 1999 Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales at, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia.
Source of Funding: University College Special Research Grant.
I worked with Dr's Mercer, Sidhu & Weber on the flammability limits of simple chemical reaction schemes in a continuously-stirred tank reactor:
  1. an oxidative single Sal'nikov scheme;
  2. the Rychly flame-chemistry scheme for gas-phase active fire-retardants; and,
  3. a reduced kinetic scheme for the hydrogen-chlorine reaction (with Dr. M.J. Sexton, University of Sydney).
We also worked on dynamical systems modelling of the limiting oxygen index test and the extinction oxygen index test.
1st May 1999 to 28th February 2000 Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Joint appointment in the Departments of Fuel & Energy and Applied Mathematics, The University of Leeds.
"Char-Forming Processes for Fire Retardancy in Polymeric Materials".
Source of Funding: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. (GR/L28142)
I continued work on the grant that I held from 1st April 1997 to 31st November 1997. (Click here to read the details)

Supervisors: Dr. A.C. McIntosh ( Fuel & Energy) and Professor J. Brindley (Applied Mathematics).
29th May 2000 to 2nd January 2003 Postdoctoral Research Fellow School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales at, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia.
"Unifying the effects of different geometrical configurations on flammability limits."
Source of Funding: Australian Research Council Grant
During this work I investigated flammability limits in: well stirred reactors (batch, semi-batch and well stirred) and a propagating flame.
Grant-holders: Dr. G.N. Mercer, Dr. H.S. Sidhu & Dr. R.O. Weber.
3rd January 2003 to 31st December 2004 Lecturer School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.
1st January 2005 to Present Senior Lecturer School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.

Visiting positions held concurrently with appointments elsewhere
11-28th February 1998 Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales at, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia.
Source of Funding: University College Special Research Grant.
I worked with Dr's Mercer, Sidhu and Weber modelling the combustion of polymers in the Cone Calorimeter and Limited Oxygen Index Test methodologies.
20th January-4th February 2000 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
I worked with Dr. X. Dong Chen on the following projects:
  1. Heterogeneously Catalysed Combustion in a Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor.
    • Auto-thermal behaviour.
    • Catalytic poisoning.
  2. Thermal Explosions.
    • The effect of a non-classical heat-flux law.
30th November -20th December 2000 Visiting Researcher, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Solid-state fermentation (SSF) processes are often commenced at temperatures below the optimal growth temperature, and relay on the self-heating of the fermenting substrate mass to increase the temperature to more favourable values. I worked with Professor G.C. Wake to analysis a simple model for a stirred SSF reactor proposed by Dr. X.D. Chen.
18th July -16th December 2005 Visiting Senior Research Fellow Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
I worked with Professor X.D. Chen. The main focus if my visit was writing a review of experimental work on self-heating and spontaneous combustion of coal. I also started a research program modelling idealised membrane reactors.
21st July 2008 -2nd July 2010 Visiting Fellow School of Physical, Environmental & Mathematical Sciences University of New South Wales at, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia..
I worked with Associate Professor H.S. Sidhu. I am working on a variety of projects.
  • Mathematical modelling of bioreactors.
    • Tessier kinetics (with a constant yield and a non-constant yield).
  • Using sensitivity analysis to distinguish between sub- and super-criticality in the operation of exothermic reactions in batch reactors.
22nd July 2010 -21st July 2013 Visiting Fellow School of Physical, Environmental & Mathematical Sciences University of New South Wales at, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia..
I worked with Associate Professor H.S. Sidhu. I am working on a variety of projects.


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Page Created: 5th December 1997.
Last Updated: 24th June 2014.