Post by Somerville College

Two fellows of Somerville College teamed up with colleagues from the University of Oxford, Department of Engineering Science to develop an AI framework capable of replacing hundreds of hours of simulation with near-instant predictions of droplet size distributions. Somerville’s Tutorial Fellow in Engineering Professor Konstantina Vogiatzaki, PhD and Professorial Fellow in Machine Learning Stephen Roberts collaborated with Postdoctoral Research Assistant Dr Giovanni Tretola (first author in this work) and recent graduate Luke Vernon to develop the pioneering artificial intelligence framework. The new AI framework has the potential to reveal the behaviour of the “jet-in-crossflow” sprays used in many modern engineering technologies, with potential benefits across combustion systems, industrial spraying technologies and lower-emission energy systems.