Trinity DPhil student wins award for jet engine icing research

Trinity DPhil student Thomas Cross has been recognised with the 2025 Best Student Paper Award in Atmospheric and Space Environments at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aviation Forum in Las Vegas.

This achievement represents a notable back-to-back success for Thomas and the Oxford Thermofluids Institute (OTI) based Engine Icing and Particle Deposition Group, highlighting the group’s world-leading work on characterising jet engine ice crystal icing, a critical challenge for flight safety.

Thomas' paper Ice Crystal Shed Prediction in Turbomachinery Using Accretion Laser Scans and Subsurface Thermal Data was recognised for its originality, technical quality, clarity, and research impact. The paper sets out to address the challenge of predicting complex ice formations that develop in jet engines at high altitudes and can break off, posing risks to engine components. It integrates detailed 3D ice-shape scans with subsurface temperature data to more accurately anticipate when shedding will occur, supporting safer and more reliable engine design.

These advances build on more than a decade of collaboration between Rolls-Royce plc. and the icing research group, with additional support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Trinity College.

Thomas is a third-year DPhil student in Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science; his work forms part of the Department’s longstanding partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop improved methods for characterising icing incidents and enabling the design of safer next-generation jet engines.

Thomas says of the award: “Winning this award two years running is both humbling and hugely motivating. It reflects the hard work of our team at Oxford, the strength of our long-standing collaboration with Rolls-Royce, and how we really try to make the most out of every element of experimental data we collect”.

The paper was co-authored by Dr Natan Zawadzki, Professor Matthew McGilvray, and Professor David Gillespie, all from the Oxford Thermofluids Institute (OTI) in the Department of Engineering Science.

This success follows the same team’s best paper award last year at AIAA Aviation Forum 2024.

Looking ahead, Thomas is working with the Engine Icing and Particle Deposition Group to develop Oxford’s new Icing at Altitude Wind Tunnel, which will offer world-leading facilities to study ice crystal behaviour. Understanding aviation icing will remain vital to the future of air travel, especially with the challenges brought by cryogenic liquid hydrogen propulsion, which is another major research focus for the OTI as part of a £9.5M cross-university collaboration.