University of Leicester
Description of the 4-year PhD project
Siemens Healthineers is a global leading company in the manufacture of MRI magnets. A key challenge for the company is the generation of ghosting artefacts that arise as part of the imaging process. These artefacts present challenges for medical professionals attempting to draw diagnoses from the images. The ghosting artefacts arise due to the strong uniform magnetic field across the bore of the magnet being disturbed by eddy currents and mechanical vibrations of the conducting components of the scanner. Current processes to remove the effects are based on post-processing the images, but with the move towards more sustainable magnet designs, predicting the field perturbations and understanding how to account for them has become very challenging.
The aim of this PhD is to develop a computational tool for predicting field inhomogeneities across the bore of the MRI imaging region and to understand how this can be used as part of the imaging process to minimise ghosting. The research also aligns with our wider developing research activities on predictive digital twins.
The methodology of the PhD will be as follows
1. Gain a good physical understanding of the physical engineering processes in the design and build of MRI scanners.
2. Understand the suite of current computational tools developed by Ledger and Gil to predict magneto-mechanical coupling in MRI scanners and extend this software to predict complex situations in 3D and apply reduced order models for computational efficiency.
3. Build on existing software bases that lead to tools that can be used by industry by working effectively with software libraries.
4. Gain familiarity with current techniques used for removing ghosting effects and how these could benefit from the additional insights provided by an accurate prediction of the field inhomogeneities across the bore of the MRI imaging region.
As well as the outstanding opportunities for collaboration with teams of engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians at the University of Leicester, the PhD student will have the opportunity to collaborate with the teams of computational engineering researchers at the Zienkiewicz Institute for Modelling and AI, Swansea University and with the industrial supervisor at Siemens Heathineers Magnet Technology. The expected start date is September 2025. Funding is available for UK applicants.
How to apply
For full details of the funding available and how to apply follow this link and then click on “Apply Mathematics PhD”. Deadline for applications is 31st January 2025.
More Information
For more information contact Prof Paul D. Ledger (pdl11@leicester.ac.uk)