PhD student crowns successful year at national competition

About the project

PhD student, Dhanushka Hewaralalage, has been successful in securing second place in the IMechE 34th Mission of Tribology presentation competition for his work on space lubricants and satellite technology.

It has been quite a year for PhD student Dhanushka Hewaralalage. Part of the Jost Institute for Tribotechnology in the School of Engineering and Computing , and the University’s Doctoral Training Centre for Industry Collaboration (DTC) . After a year of competition success, he celebrated second place for his presentation in the prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) national Design Challenge.

Dhanushka competed against PhD candidates from a range of Russell Group universities at the competition, including Leeds, Imperial, Sheffield and Southampton.

Supervised by Professor Ian Sherrington , Dr Nathalie Renevier , Dr Ali Ghanbari and Dr Mara Bernabei, Dhanushka specialises in space mechanisms and lubricants. His doctoral research focuses on Space Tribology for small spacecraft missions, and his IMechE presentation discussed methods for predicting the performance of lubricants for use in space. A significant part of his work involves designing a compact satellite so that his predictions can be tested in orbit.

The IMechE prize puts the final finish on a successful year for Dhanushka . He won the University’s 3MT competition, where PhD students get three minutes and one slide to present their research to a non-specialist audience. This success helped him progress to become our first-ever PhD student to reach the semi-finals of the national Vitae 3MT competition. And he also claimed second place in our Annual Postgraduate Research Conference. For a student whose research is based on testing materials in the extremes of space, it’s fair to say that Dhanushka's year has been out this world.

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