Rushavya Naidu

I completed a BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. I chose the field of energy for my career path because power generation is one of the largest contributors to climate change. I am eager to work towards decreasing the negative impact that this industry has on the environment and society, to which I believe fusion is the key. I am well-versed in conducting CFD and heat transfer analyses as these formed the basis of my master’s thesis, relating to the development of thermodynamic models of combined-cycle power plants. I then went on to spend 5 years in industry at an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company, focusing on system design in the oil, gas and power sector. 

My PhD project is centred around Plasma Facing Components (PFCs), which are subjected to complex loads in a fusion reactor. To build confidence in the integrity of PFCs, we must test individual components under these complex multi-physics loads. It is expensive, time consuming and difficult to physically test the components under these environmental conditions, making it desirable to enable the use of virtual tests, e.g. engineering simulations, to qualify these components. However, simulations require validation against experimental data over domains that can be physically tested to ensure that they are credible. The aim of my project is to integrate physical and virtual testing to develop a multi-physics data-driven validation framework, which synthesises data from multiple sensors and demonstrates credibility of an engineering simulation. 

2021 Publication – https://www.matec-conferences.org/articles/matecconf/abs/2021/16/matecconf_sacam21_00003/matecconf_sacam21_00003.html

Supervisors

• Dr Ksenija Dvurecenska
• Dr Peter Green