2 Research Associates (m/f/d, no. 111-24)

At the Campus Essen, Faculty for Engineering, Institute of Engineering Mathematics, the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) is looking for

2 Research Associates (m/f/d)
(German pay grade E13 TV-L for 1,0 FTE)

within the Starting Grant „Beyond Representative Volume Elements for Random Heterogeneous Materials“ (BeyondRVE) funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

The ERC StG BeyondRVE focuses on novel simulation technology for computing the material behavior of materials with a random microstructure. The goal is to build up a groundbreaking multiscale methodology, taking into account the latest neural-network technology and screening the spurious boundary layers which arise for digital volume images of microstructures. Upon completion of the project, a significant boost for the nonlinear mechanics of heterogeneous materials and lightweight design is expected, providing multiscale methods with more expressive results in shorter time for larger classes of materials with higher complexity.

The aim of the first PhD project is to establish a novel computation methodology for the effective properties of a random heterogeneous material based on so-called microstructure-uncertainty quantifying volume elements (µQVE) which permits to quantify the direction-dependent uncertainty of the effective properties and enables a transfer to component scale. The methodology should be applicable to digital volume images and synthetic microstructures.

Micromechanics solvers need to balance accuracy (of resolving the microstructure) and efficiency (via solution time). The currently most successful strategy operates on regular grids and exploits fully integrated FFT-based solvers [34]. However, even medium accuracy requires a high number of unknowns. To take the next step, it is required to extend the accuracy of FFT-based solvers while preserving their efficiency. The aim of the second PhD project is to establish a novel FFT-based solver with higher-order accuracy.