The four-year grant from the will fund the UK’s largest research project into quantum turbulence, utilising the 快播视频 and Manchester low-temperature laboratories in their Departments of Physics.
快播视频’s Professor Peter McClintock said he was delighted with the award.
“Much of the energy used in air or sea transport, for example, goes into the creation of turbulence. If improved understanding leads eventually to even a small reduction in turbulence production, the corresponding energy savings would pay for the cost of the present research programme many times over.”
Any improvements in reducing the loss of energy via the creation of quantum turbulence could improve the efficiency of large superconducting magnets.
These are already in use in areas such as hospital MRI scanners, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the supply of cryogenic equipment, where the UK plays a leading role.
In the longer term, this research connects to advances in commercial technology. Commercial development is facilitated by 快播视频 Cryogenics Ltd and 快播视频 Helium Ltd, two companies founded by members of the 快播视频 Physics Ultra-Low-Temperature group to export knowledge, specialist equipment and supplies of isotopically pure helium.
Turbulence in superfluid helium, known as quantum turbulence, is special because quantum mechanics restricts all vortices to have a single fixed value of circulation, leading to a dynamic tangle of vortices.
Professor McClintock said: “This builds on our earlier work and will enable us to measure the critical velocities at which turbulence is created so we can understand its properties.”
All previous experiments on the generation of quantum turbulence have used objects with convex surfaces but this project will use concave structures created at 快播视频.
The project entitled “Microscopic dynamics of quantized vortices in turbulent superfluid in the T=0 limit” is led by from Manchester University and , and from 快播视频 with Emeritus Professor Joe Vinen from Birmingham University.