Search

Professor Abdulnaser Sayma

Professor of Energy Engineering, Director of the Thermo-Fluid Research Centre

School of Science & Technology Department of Engineering

Contact details

Address

Professor Abdulnaser Sayma CG19, Tait Building [C]
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

Personal links

About

Overview

Professor Sayma obtained BSc in Mechanical Engineering with Distinction from Birzeit University in Palestine in 1987, MSc in Energy Technology from Salford University in 1990 and PhD from UMIST in 1994. His thesis topic was Finite Element model for dense gas dispersion in the atmosphere. He joined the Aeronautics department at Imperial College London in 1994 on EPSRC funded project as a research assistant where he worked on the development of an external aerodynamic compressible flow model introducing boundary layer grids and viscous effects in the Euler solver.

He Joined the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London in February 1994 as a Research Assistant working on the development of unstructured grid compressible flow solvers for viscous compressible flows with application for flow around complete aircraft. Subsequently, In 1996, he joined the Rolls Royce Vibration University Technology Centre (VUTC) at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, where he stayed for about 9 years. He progressed to a Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow and then Principal Research Fellow. In 2001, he was awarded the title RolIs Royce reaserch fellow at Imperial College and in 2003 he was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow co-funded by Rolls-Royce Plc. During his spell at the VUTC, he was one of two main developers for the unsteady aerodynamics and aeroelatisity code AU3D which has been the main aeroelasticity system at Rolls Royce. He also contributed to several major aero-engine projects including analysis of compressors, fans, turbines, rotating cavities, intake and bypass ducts and downstream nozzles.

In 2005 he became a Senior Lecturer in Computational Mechanics at Brunel University. A year later, he was appointed as a Professor of Computational Fluid Dynamics at the University of Sussex where he worked at the Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre (TFMRC) at the Department of Engineering and Design. He continued to lead research in unsteady compressible flow in turbomacinery, where he focused on industrial gas turbines and micro-gas turbines. He held several senior administrative positions, the last of which was the Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange for the School of Engineering and Informatics. He also introduced a new MSc in Sustainable Energy Technology.

In January 2013, he joined City University London as a Professor of Energy Engineering. In 2014, he was appointed as the associate Dean for Post Graduate Studies at the School of Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering until July 2019. He held the position if Interim Dean for the School between November 2018 and February 2019. He is currently the Director of the Thermo-Fluids Research Centre since February 2019 and has been appointed as the Head of Engineering from 1st of January 2020, heading the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, the Department of Civil Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

He has led the Cycle Efficiency Technical Committee at the European Turbine Network (ETN) and has been a member of the ETN Project Board since 2014. He is the founder of the European Micro-Gas Turbine Forum (EMGTF) which was established in 2017 and has been the chairman of its advisory board.

Major research projects led: the EU FP7 consortium for conducting research and demonstration of a concentrated solar power system powering a small-scale micro-gas turbine (OMSoP), 2013-207, the Newton project jointly funded by InnovateUK and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MoST) on the development of concentrated solar power micro gas turbine technology coupled to thermal energy storage (SoLGATS) 2017-2019, The EPSRC funded project, Fundamental studies of Organic Rankine Cycles (NextORC), 2017-2020, and the Marie Curie Innovative Training Network, Next Generation of Micro Gas turbine technology for high efficiency and low emissions (NextMGT) 2020-2023. He has also led the Turbomachiney work package the EU project H2-IGCC 2009-2013 which aimed at the development of micro gas turbine technology for hydrogen-Rich Syngas and he is currently leading the Turbomachinery work package in the EU H2020 project SCARABEUS aiming at the development of supercritical carbon dioxide cycles for concentrated solar power plants.

Qualifications

  • Certificate of Teaching and Learning, University College London, United Kingdom, Oct 2002 – Sep 2003
  • PhD, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, Oct 1990 – Apr 1994
  • MSc, University of Salford, United Kingdom, Oct 1989 – Sep 1990
  • BSc Mechanical Engineering, Birzeit University, Palestinian Territory, Feb 1981 – Apr 1987

Employment

  • Head of Department of Engineering, City, University of London, Jan 2020 – present
  • Director of Thermo-Fluids Research Centre, City, University of London, Feb 2019 – present
  • Associate Dean, Post Graduate Studies, City University London, London, Feb 2014 – Jul 2019
  • Professor of Energy Engineering, University of London, Jan 2013 – present
  • Professor of Computational Fluid Dynamics, University of Sussex, Dec 2006 – Dec 2012
  • Senior Lecturer in Computational Dynamics, Brunel University, Dec 2005 – Dec 2006
  • Principal Research Fellow, Imperial College London, Jan 1996 – Dec 2005
  • Research Associate, Imperial College London, Jan 1994 – Dec 1995

Award

  • EPSRC (2017) Fundamental Studies of organic Rankine Cycle Expanders (NextORC)
    The aim of this research is to improve the understanding of ORC expander design and off-design performance through developing, and validating, suitable tools to accurately predict design point scaling and off-design performance of ORC systems. Most notably, this refers to predicting the design and off-design performance of supersonic turbines and two-phase screw expanders. These tools will be validated through suitable experimental tests, and will then be used in steady state, dynamic and techno-economic simulations of different cycle configurations.

Expertise

Geographic Areas

  • Africa - Central
  • Africa - Northern
  • Asia - East
  • Europe

Research

Research interests

- Unsteady Aerodynamics and Aeroelaticity
- Gas Turbines for jet propulsion
- Industrial gas Turbines
- Micro-gas turbines
- Energy systems including solar power and waste heat recovery

Publications

Publications by category

Books (3)

  • Sayma, A. Computational Fluid Dynamics. Bookboon. ISBN 978-87-7681-430-4.
  • Long, C. and Sayma, N. Heat Transfer. Bookboon. ISBN 978-87-7681-432-8.
  • Long, C. and Sayma, N. Heat Transfer: Exercises. Bookboon. ISBN 978-87-7681-433-5.

Chapters (8)

  • Alzaili, J., White, M. and Sayma, A. (2020). Developments in Solar Powered Micro Gas Turbines and Waste Heat Recovery Organic Rankine Cycles. New Technologies, Development and Application II (pp. 439–452). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-18071-3.
  • Iaria, D., Alzaili, J. and Sayma, A.I. (2018). Solar Dish Micro Gas Turbine Technology for Distributed Power Generation. Sustainable Energy Technology and Policies (pp. 119–131). Springer Singapore. ISBN 978-981-10-7187-4.
  • Sayma, A., Vahdati, M., Wu, X. and Imregun, M. (2003). Recent developments in unsteady flow modelling for turbomachinery aeroelasticity. In Elder, R.L., Towlidakis, A. and Yates, M.K. (Eds.), Advnaces of CFD in Fluid Machinery Design IMechE.
  • Vahdati, M., Sayma, A. and Imregun, M. (1999). Case studies in Turbomachinery Aeroelasticity using an integrated 3D non-linear method. In Sieverding, C.H. and Fransson, T.H. (Eds.), Aeroelasticity in axial-flow turbomachines, Lecture Series Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics.
  • Sayma, A., Vahdati, M., Green, J.S. and Imregun, M. (1998). Whole-assembly flutter analysis of a low pressure turbine blade. In Fransson ed, T.H. (Ed.), Unsteady Aerodynamics and Aeroelasticity of Turbomachines (pp. 347–359). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
  • Sbardella, L., Sayma, A. and Imregun, M. (1998). Semi-unstructured mesh generator for flow calculations in axial turbomachinery blading. In Fransson, T.H. (Ed.), Unsteady Aerodynamics and Aeroelasticity of Turbomachines (pp. 541–554). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
  • Piero, J. and Sayma, A. (1996). A 3-D unstructured multigrid Navier-Stokes solver. In Morton, K.W. and Baines, M.J. (Eds.), Numerical Methods for Fluids Dynamics Oxford University Press.
  • Sayma, A.I. Gas Turbines for Marine Applications. (pp. 1–10). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Conference papers and proceedings (56)

Journal articles (55)

Patents (3)

  • Simpson, G. (2008). Design of vanes for exposure to Vibration Loading. Patent no. US7909580 B2
  • Vahdati, M. and Sayma, A. (2008). METHOD OF MODELING THE ROTATING STALL OF A GAS TURBINE ENGINE. Patent no. US 7,643,975 B2
  • Al-Zaili, J. and Sayma, A. Modular thermal energy storage apparatus. Patent no. GB2576088