Two funded PhD Projects in joint PhD Cluster programme on multiphase ferrofluid systems for biomedical and engineering applications available at James Weir Fluids Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Strathclyde.

Applications are invited for two PhD studentships in the field of Fluid Dynamics under the joint PhD Cluster in collaboration with international partners (University of Waterloo, Canada):

• Ferrofluid encapsulation for targeted drug delivery
• Ferrofluid emulsions characterisation

Ferrofluids are stable colloidal suspensions of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in a non-magnetic liquid that can be strongly magnetised. These special fluids can flow as common liquids while simultaneously exhibiting magnetic properties typical of solids or liquid metals. By virtue of their peculiar behaviour, ferrofluids have found widespread use in engineering applications, e.g. for cooling loudspeakers and protecting hard drives. Recent experimental developments extend to biomedical applications and often involve ferrofluid droplet systems exploiting their ability to target desired locations using magnetism for manipulation, transport and actuation.

In these projects we aim to gain fundamental understanding of multiphase ferrofluid systems and exploit their use for biomedical and engineering applications and will focus on the presence of interfaces and the interaction between magnetism and the flow field to advance the field of ferrofluid droplet applications. 

Numerical model development is at the core of the PhD work, but the students are expected to engage and be involved in experiments in collaboration with partner institutions, with planned secondments to ensure effective knowledge exchange within the cluster.