Women in Engineering
The Amelia Earhart Fellowship
The Amelia Earhart Fellowship was established in 1938 in honour of the famed pilot, Amelia Earhart. The US$10,000 Fellowship is awarded annually to around 30 women across the globe pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace-applied sciences or aerospace-applied engineering. To date, three female PhD students at the Whittle Laboratory have won this prestigious award.
Kathryn Evans, winner 2012
During her PhD at the whittle laboratory Kathryn Evans investigated the effect of clocking in low pressure turbines. Clocking is the process of varying the relative circumferential position of blade rows of the same type in adjacent stages. As a result the phasing of wakes arriving at the downstream blades can be altered. Cooperative fluid dynamics techniques like this are also found in nature, for example, this is the reason why flocks of geese fly in a V-formation. Kathryn successfully demonstrated the effect of clocking in the Peregrine Experimental turbine Facility at the Whittle laboratory.
Masha Folk, winner 2014
Masha is a current CDT PhD student at the Whittle laboratory. Masha is investigating the effect of real-world turbulence levels on the loss in the high pressure turbine. In a modern gas turbine, the high-pressure turbine is located immediately downstream of the combustor. The aerodynamics of the combustor, which include large-scale flow recirculation and jets-in-crossflow cooling, create high levels of turbulence at the inlet to the turbine. However, loss in the turbine is generally measured in rigs with very low inlet turbulence. The focus of Masha’s research is how combustor-style turbulence impacts loss in the high pressure turbine.
Heather Jameson, winner 2015
Heather Jameson is a current PhD student at the Whittle Laboratory. Heather is investigating the leakage-path loss mechanisms in the low pressure turbine. An individual stage of a low pressure turbine consists of a row of stationary blades followed by a row of rotating blades. This arrangement necessitates radial clearance gaps above the tips of the rotor blades and below the hub end of the stator blades. Therefore, a fraction of the gas does not pass through the blade rows, but instead leaks through the tip and hub cavities into the downstream blade row. These two leakage paths have important consequences for the performance of the machine.