Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Heat Transfer and Thermal Management for Aircraft

The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology is one of the world’s most highly ranked (and most comprehensive) research, education and innovation communities devoted entirely to aerospace engineering. More than 200 science staff, around 250 PhD candidates and over 2,700 BSc and MSc students apply aerospace engineering disciplines to address the global societal challenges that threaten us today, climate change without doubt being the most important. Our focal subjects: sustainable aerospace, big data and artificial intelligence, bio-inspired engineering and smart instruments and systems. Working at the faculty means working together. With partners in other faculties, knowledge institutes, governments and industry, both aerospace and non-aerospace. Working in field labs and innovation hubs on our university campus and beyond.

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The Department of Flow Physics and Technology is one of four departments composing the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Experimental and numerical research on a wide variety of topics is performed by personnel of the Aerodynamics section. The staff of the Flight Performance and Propulsion (FPP) section is active in the research areas of aircraft design, propulsion system design as well as propulsion integration. The third section is Wind Energy, and its people look into wind energy systems of all kinds, and also research Aeroacoustics topics.  

The department has access to comprehensive laboratories with modern wind tunnels and propulsion and power set-ups equipped with state-of-the-art measurement systems. Furthermore, a powerful computer cluster is available for numerical simulations of complex problems.

Flight Performance and Propulsion Section

This vacancy is within the Flight Performance and Propulsion section where fundamental and applied research in the field of aircraft design, propulsion systems, and their integration is performed.

Within the Flight Performance and Propulsion section, several activities in the area of thermal management are ongoing. For example, within the Propulsion and Power group, a code for the automated shape optimization of heat transfer channels is being developed, together with a method for ultra-compact heat exchangers selection and preliminary sizing. Moreover, a numerical study of the Meredith effect in air intakes is being performed and related experiments are planned, as well as experimental and numerical research on the optimal flow distribution in condensers in collaboration with the von Karman Institute.

The Flow Physics and Technology department counts on several setups of the Aerospace Propulsion and Power laboratory and of the Aerodynamics laboratory that can be used for heat transfer experiments. For example, two experimental setups, the ORCHID and the IRIS (links) have been designed to accommodate heat transfer test sections. Moreover, several wind tunnels , can be used to perform air-flow heat transfer experiments. In addition, a large variety of modelling and simulation tools are available for heat transfer studies. Opportunities for collaboration within the department, the Aerospace Engineering faculty, and beyond are numerous.