General
The energy transition is one of the major societal challenges humanity faces today and to support a society where sustainable energy is available anytime and anywhere, we are in urgent need of new storage materials and conversion technologies. TU/e therefore researches heat storage, conversion of gaseous and liquid future fuels (e.g. solar fuels), but as one of the only few in the world, it also studies the very promising alternative of metal fuels. The existing disciplines of combustion and complex reacting multiphase flows within Thermal Fluids Engineering (TFE) therefore need extension by areas including reacting flows in dense dust systems and electrochemical reduction processes of e.g. dissolved metal-oxides. Furthermore, the use of porous media to store energy is very attractive, like underground geothermal energy and salts undergoing phase transition and/or chemical transitions. Extension of our disciplinary knowledge on chemical reacting flow modeling using for instance reactive multiphase molecular dynamics and new diagnostic measurement techniques to visualize the (pore-scale) flow dynamics is needed.
For the new area of
metal fuels we will appoint a senior researcher and two young staff members, while in the area of
porous media flows we will allocate two junior positions.
Research field candidates
The Department of Mechanical Engineering of the TU/e seeks to hire
five (5) outstanding faculty members at all levels within the field of
(multiphase) flows for low-carbon energy systems, which should play a prominent role in addressing these challenges and trends in the above-mentioned areas. The department has a particular interest in candidates with a basis in one of the following subjects:
- Numerical simulation of metal fuels combustion and regeneration
- Laser diagnostics in dense reactive fuel clouds
- Numerical simulation of electrolytic regeneration of metal fuels
- Computational modelling for porous media
- Experimental diagnostics in porous media
Candidates can apply to (tenure-track)
assistant, associate and full professor positions and are expected to have knowledge on relevant application domains of energy storage and conversion. She/he should have the aspiration to contribute to the creation of a strong, internationally renowned research group, while fostering a collaborative network with other academics working on the topic within the department, the university and industry. The candidate should contribute to the progress in the field of energy storage and/or conversion, to make major contributions to the fundamentals of the energy transition.
Education
The candidates will contribute to the existing BSc program Mechanical Engineering and the MSc programs Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Sustainable Energy Technology (SET) within the department. The candidates will be supported in obtaining the University Teaching Qualification ('BKO').
Next to teaching, the candidates will guide and supervise BSc and MSc students with their graduation projects. The supervision is also extended to PhD students under the projects in Thermal Fluids Engineering (TFE).
Financing
Five (5) positions of 1.0 fte, financed by the Mechanical Engineering Department. The candidates will vigorously work on pursuing research grants from different sources, both national funds from the science foundation (TTW, NWO), but also European grants within the H2020 program, including ERC grants. Experienced section members will guide younger candidates in writing proposals.
Embedding The candidate's groups will strongly co-operate with existing groups in the Department, in particular the groups within the sections of Thermal Fluid Engineering (TFE). Depending on the function level to which the candidate applies, the candidate's group can be embedded in the Section of Power & Flow, or the Section Energy Technology and Fluid Dynamics. The department fosters a personnel strategy stimulating personal growth towards faculty forming individually groups within larger coherent sections.
The candidate's groups will be embedded in the Institute for Renewable Energy Storage (IRES) within the University. The groups will also be embedded in research school of fluid dynamics J.M. Burgerscentrum.