Dr Dominic Taunton

Research groups

Research interests

• My research interests lie in improving the design and operation of ships and other maritime artefacts, in particular high speed craft such as semi-displacement catamarans and hard chine planning craft, through the development of accurate but efficient tools for predicting and evaluating their performance.
• Experimental Hydrodynamics | This research focuses on the efficient use of experiments at both model and full-scale to measure the hydrodynamic performance of various ship types and maritime artefacts from wave energy devices to aircraft ditching on water. Recent research has looked at methods for quiescent period prediction for safe launch and recovery
• Human Element | This research developed from a project to integrate human performance into the design of high speed planning craft. This integration of the human element into the design process has resulted in collaborations with human element experts in order to improve ship design and operation. This approach has led to the development of human like autonomy behaviours to improve the seakeeping and fuel consumption of autonomous surface vehicles.
• Performance Sports Engineering | This research uses experimental and numerical approaches, often originally developed for ships, adapted for use in performance sports such as swimming, rowing, sailing, canoeing ans skeleton. This has included the development of test equipment and physics based simulators.

Research projects