PhD and DIC, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Dr Nirmal Weerasekara was a Senior Research Fellow with the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) for 8 years, working in the area of computational modelling applied to mineral processing, in particular to comminution modelling. He has more than 18 years of experience in computational modelling, along with mechanical design, instrumentation, signal processing and big data processing, applied to industrial and fundamental problem solving. He also has experience at mine sites, which compliments his modelling expertise. His goal is to understand fundamental mechanism in processors and equipment’s, particularly in mineral processing, through research to offer solutions to the industry and also to educate engineers and researchers with problem solving skills for tackling future challenges. He is specialised in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Discrete Element Method (DEM), Finite Element Methods (FEM) and Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). He has years of experience in supervising undergraduate and post-graduate students, and authored number of research articles.
He has a PhD (2004) in Mechanical Engineering, specialising in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Combustion, from Imperial College London, University of London, UK. Also has a BScEng(Hons) (2000) in Mechanical Engineering from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Since 2001 his research work has been in computational and numerical model development, modelling of engineering equipment and processes. Some of his previous work includes modelling of Coal/Solid fuel combustors, hydrocyclones, stirred vessels used in mineral processing, and flow behaviours in human upper air ways.
Currently he is a Senior Engineer at Weir Minerals Australia, Sydney, providing innovative solutions to their product range to achieve performance improvements.