About
Dr. Ranga Dinesh Kahanda Koralage joined Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton as a New Frontiers Fellow in 2013, and became a Lecturer in Energy Technologies in 2016. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in School of Engineering, Cranfield University (2007-10), and Senior Research Fellow in Engineering Department, Lancaster University (2010-12). His current research is focused entirely on developing and applying fundamental theoretical and computational techniques to better understand alternative and sustainable energy vectors such as hydrogen and ammonia for future decarbonisation strategy. The ultimate goal of his research is to improve technologies for production and utilisation of hydrogen and alternative energy vectors for power generation, transportation and domestic/industrial heating applications. He has secured research funding from UKRI EPSRC, Innovate UK and Industry, all as a Principal Investigator (PI). In his research field of Energy & Flow Physics, he has an international publication profile with about 70 journal and conference publications with significant research output published in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. He is currently working with national and international research groups at University College London (UCL), Eindhoven University of Technology, University of Magdeburg Otto-von-Guericke, Tsinghua University and The University of Sydney.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Clean Combustion Technology of Hydrogen, Ammonia, Biofuels and Synthetic fuels: internal combustion engines, gas turbines, thermal boilers
- Green Hydrogen Production: process and system engineering design, scalability and efficiency
- Thermal Management: thermal mannagement and design
Current research
- Clean Combustion Technology of Hydrogen, Ammonia, Biofuels and Synthetic Fuels: Clean combustion modelling using DNS, LES and RANS techniques, High pressure gaseous and liquid fuel engine combustion, Thermal boilers, Emission reduction
- Green Hydrogen Production Process: Two-phase flow modelling coupling fluid mechanics-electro chemistry-heat transfer, Scalability and system level engineering design
- Thermal Management: Temperature management, Numerical modelling and simulation coupling fluid mechanics-heat transfer, System level design
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Supervision
Current PhD Students
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Dr. Ranga Dinesh Kahanda Koralage obtained his first degree with First Class Honours (Faculty Gold Medal) from University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka reading Mathematics (2002), later completing his PhD at Loughborough University, UK where he focused on Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of turbulent swirling flames (2007). He has carried out a range of research activities which involved numerical modelling and simulations of large-scale (Megawatt scale) green hydrogen production systems, combustion and emissions of hydrogen, ammonia and hydrogen fuel blends, thermal management strategies, scalar mixing and turbulent flows. His very recent research involved modelling and simulations of scalability and thermal management of large capacity green hydrogen production systems using proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis, hydrogen and hydrogen-ammonia spark ignition (SI) engine combustion, diesel-hydrogen and diesel-ammonia-hydrogen dual-fuel (DF) compression ignition (CI) engine combustion and hydrogen burner combustion for domestic hydrogen boilers. He has taught undergraduate teaching modules in Introduction to Advanced Mechanical Engineering Science, Introduction to Energy Technologies, Environment and Sustainability, Automotive Propulsion, Advanced Computational Methods and supervised several PhD students to a successful completion. He has carried out industry scale projects for Shell, Carnot Engines Ltd, Covaxe Engine Ltd and AIRBUS (UK). He is an active reviewer for UKRI EPSRC and several high impact factor Energy Journals such as International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Applied Energy and Journal of Fuel.