PhD in Optical fibre sensing for ultra-high-pressure rheometry

The Faculty of Engineering, Department Toegepaste natuurkunde en fotonica, Research Group Brussels Photonics is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

Your work will be an essential part of the RheoLub research project, funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The project aims to develop advanced experimental and modelling methods to better understand the behaviour of industrial lubricants under extreme operating conditions. Lubricants in gears, bearings and other mechanical systems can be exposed to very high pressures and temperatures, as well as high shear rates. Reliable measurements under such conditions are essential for the design of efficient, durable and electrified machinery, yet current measurement techniques have significant limitations.

Within RheoLub, the VUB team at Brussels Photonics - B-PHOT (www.b-phot.org ) will focus on the development of optical fibre sensing technologies. The objective is to develop and validate miniature fibre-optic sensors capable of measuring pressure and temperature in a new generation of ultra-high-pressure rheometers. The intended application is a slit-die rheometer cartridge in which optical fibres are integrated close to the lubricant flow channel. This will enable spatially resolved measurements of pressure and temperature profiles under extreme operating conditions.

As a PhD researcher, your work will specifically involve the following activities:

• Designing and numerically evaluating strategies for integrating optical fibre sensors into high-pressure environments, taking into account parameters such as fibre type, coating, groove geometry, embedding depth, bonding layer and host material.
• Developing and integrating arrays of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors in standard single-mode and/or microstructured optical fibres for spatially resolved pressure and temperature measurements.
  Investigating pressure-sensitive fibre concepts, including the Butterfly microstructured optical fibre developed at VUB, as well as sensing approaches based on birefringence.
• Experimentally calibrating the developed sensors in dedicated high-pressure test setups, including the analysis of pressure and temperature cross-sensitivity.
• Developing methods for processing spectral measurement data, including Bragg peak tracking, peak-shape analysis, analysis of birefringence-induced peak splitting, temperature compensation, and the conversion of strain into pressure.
• Integrating and validating the optical fibre sensors in close collaboration with the project partners at Ghent University, who are responsible for developing the rheometer cartridge, thin-film sensors as a reference technology, and methods for extracting material properties based on digital twins.
• Communicating research results through scientific publications, project meetings and international conferences.

Depending on your profile, the position may, in addition to the research activities, involve a limited amount of teaching-related duties, such as supervising practical sessions and exercise classes and/or supervising Master’s thesis students. Such teaching activities will always be of very limited scope and will be coordinated with your research programme and progress towards the PhD.

You will join the B-PHOT research group at VUB and will be supervised by Prof. Francis Berghmans and Dr Sidney Goossens. The position involves close collaboration with project partners at Ghent University, whose research focuses on ultra-high-pressure rheometry, tribology and the modelling of lubricants.

Your main workplace will be the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus in Etterbeek. Depending on the experimental activities, project collaborations and project meetings, you will also regularly work at our Photonics Innovation Center in Pajottegem.