Team

Below you can find details of past and present team members. If you are interested in joining, get in touch.

Current PhD students

Pawel Ogrodniczak (2020-Present)

Pawel Ogrodniczak completed his Master of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering at City, University of London, where he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree. His research focuses on the characterisation of two-phase expansion occurring in the nozzle of a turbomachine designed for novel two-phase organic Rankine cycles. Pawel employs numerical tools to simulate the flash boiling of molecularly complex fluids in converging-diverging channels. His findings provide insights into the complexities of such flows under supersonic conditions and help assess the feasibility of designing two-phase turbomachines for low-grade thermal energy utilisation and waste-heat recovery systems.

 

Charlie Westpfel (2023-Present)

Charlie joined the University of Sussex in 2019 where he completed his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is now a PhD Candidate and Doctoral Tutor operating in the Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre. His research is focussed on developing a test facility to provide experimental validation of two-phase flow within expander technologies to improve organic Rankine cycle performance for the utilisation of low-temperature waste heat sources.

Past PhD students

Dr Salma Salah (co-supervisor, 2019-2023)

Salma is currently a lecturer at the British University in Egypt (BUE). She obtained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from City, University of London, along with an MSc degree from Cairo University and a BSc degree from the British University in Egypt. During her doctoral studies, Salma dedicated almost four years to working on the design and analysis of supercritical carbon-dioxide axial turbines. Her research primarily focused on developing and optimising design tools for a 100 MW scale sCO₂ multi-stage axial turbine. This work contributed to a deeper understanding of the main design features of turbines operating with CO₂ mixtures. Furthermore, her work evaluated the capability of existing mean-line loss models in predicting the performance of turbines operating with CO₂ mixtures.

 

Dr Omar Aqel (co-supervisor, 2019-2023)

Omar obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from City, University of London, and a BEng from Birzeit University in Palestine. In his doctoral studies, Omar investigated cycle and turbine design optimisation for power plants utilising CO₂-based working fluids. The work focused on the effect of molecular complexity on cycle layout selection, the effect of additive selection on the design of radial inflow turbines across power scales, and the modelling of uncertainty associated with the working fluid thermo-physical properties.

 

Dr Abdelrahman Abdeldayem (co-supervisor, 2020-2023)

Abdelrahman is a currently a Research Fellow at Cranfield University. Alongside his PhD from City, University of London, he holds MSc and BSc degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt. Abdelrahman's PhD research focused on numerical simulation and loss investigation of large-scale supercritical CO₂ axial turbines. His findings have improved the understanding of the aerodynamic performance of novel turbines operating with CO₂-based mixtures and verified the applicability of the existing mean-line loss models at both design and off-design operating conditions.