Professor Nick Syred

Overview

Nick Syred graduated with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering in 1965 and obtained a PhD in Power Fluidics in 1969, both at Sheffield University, and was subsequently appointed Research Fellow in the Department of Fuel Technology at Sheffield, under Norman Chigier and John Beer in the area of Swirling Flow and Combustion.  He moved to University College, Cardiff in 1974, continuing his work on combustion, swirling vortex and cyclonic flows, centrifugal separation of particles, and heat and mass transfer processes in general. His fields of interest include combustion of gaseous, liquid and solid fuels, heat exchangers, thermofluids, fluidics, water models, flow of steel, hot gas clean-up, cyclone dust separators and gas cleaning in general. During his time at Cardiff, a team of up to 8 research assistants and several research students has been developed, producing 40 PhD theses and 5 MSc theses.  He has obtained research grants amounting to more than £5M from diverse sources including UKAEA, SERC, British Coal, BP, EEC, Air Products, Coal Processing Consultants Ltd and NSF in areas including biomass and coal combustion, heat exchangers, North Sea flare design, fundamentals of swirling flows with and without liquid/gaseous fuel combustion, power fluidics applied to the nuclear industry, and pressurised fluidised bed combustion, low NOx burners, novel cyclone dust separators, classifiers and gas centrifuges. Notable publications include a book Swirl Flows  jointly with two colleagues in the USA.  This is a standard reference book in this area. In December 1987 the book Principles of Combustion Engineering for Boilers was published by Academic Press and this contained a long chapter on Cyclone Combustors by Professor Syred. In 2002 he won the Nato Science Partnership prize with professor Khalatov of the Ukraine and Dr Koslov from Russia  for Innovative Cooling Techniques applied to Gas Turbine Engines. In 2003 he was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Global Research award to study innovative laser diagnostics and instabilities in swirl flows in Australia. This lead to the publication of a long review article about Swirl Flow Instabilities in the Journal Progress in Energy and Combustion Systems He has has served on the Coal Technology Sub-Committees, Process Engineering Committee and Energy Committees of the SERC, has been a member of the Watt Committee on Energy, is Chair of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of the Institute of Energy, member of the Committee of the British Section of the Combustion Institute, UK Representative on the EEC Committee studying large combustion facilities, a member of the UK Government’s Coal Task Force, a member of the EPSRC Combustion College and has served as a Senator on the Engineering Council. He has also acted as an External Examiner for many PhD/MSc submissions at Imperial College London, Leeds, Brighton, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Cranfield and Adelaide Universities. He has been a Consultant to many organisations, including : UKAEA, British Coal, British Gas, Blue Circle Cement, Dyson Ltd, AEA Technology, Sturtevant Mill Company of Europe, NEI International, Babcock Power Ltd., Eminox, Hoover Ltd., Merpro Tortec, Llaidlaw Drew Ltd. Mechanical, Manufacturing and Medical Engineering
Energy and Environment


2002 Winner of the Nato Science Partnership Prize with Professor Kozlov and Khalatov for Collaboration on Innovative Cooling Techniques Applied to Gas Turbine Engines 2003 Co-Ordinator of Powerflam 2 European Union Research programme involving 10 EU Partners and investigating problems of co-firing biomass with Coal inlarge Utility Boilers 2003 Awarded Royal Academy of Engineering Global Research Award to study Instabilities in Swirling Flow using advanced laser diagnostics in Australia 2005 Nato Award to organise and hold an Advanced Research Workshop in the Ukraine 2006 Appointed to the Steering Committee of the EU Technology platform on biofuels 2010 Best paper award from the Terrestrial Energy Systems group of AIAA for paper presented at the 47th Aeropsace sciences meeting at Orlando, 2010 2011 Appointed Honorary Distinguished Professor at Cardiff University 2011 Awarded Prestigious George Westinghouse Gold medal for 2011 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2011 Recognised as an author of one of  the top 1% most cited papers in my field worldwide in 2011by the Council of Canadien Academies