Dr. Madeleine Combrinck is a chartered mechanical engineer who specialises in applications of modelling and simulation to real-life problems.  She commenced her career in 2001 in the South African Navy and obtained a Bachelor of Engineering at Stellenbosch University through a Naval bursary.  The National Research Foundation of South Africa awarded her a scholarship in 2007 to complete a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering with specialisation in computational fluid dynamics.  She was head-hunted by the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) in 2009 to work as specialist engineer in a research and development unit.  During this time, she completed a Doctorate in Engineering with specialisation in computational fluid mechanics.  This was done on a part-time basis in 3.5 years while working full-time.  Madeleine moved to the United Kingdom and joined Northumbria University in 2017 as a senior lecturer.

Dr. Combrinck has a strong background in conducting industrial research in the aerospace and defence sector.  She developed a new framework for the aerodynamic characterisation of objects in arbitrary motion.  This research is now also being applied in the automotive sector.  Since moving to Northumbria University she is increasingly involved in renewable energy projects and is currently working on the modelling of anaerobic digestors and organic Rankine cycles.

Madeleine is a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Aerospace and Defence Systems

Missile, projectile, grenade, and mortar design and aerodynamics

Rocket nozzle optimisation

Shaped charge configuration and optimisation

Ballistic process modelling and simulation

Marine propeller efficiency studies

Other compressible flow, high speed applications

Renewable Energy Systems

Fuel poverty studies

Combine heat and power solutions

Waste-to-Energy studies

Anaerobic digesters

Organic Rankine Cycles

Fundamental Research

Boundary layer studies

Accelerating and decelerating flow investigations

Similarity solutions for non-inertial flows