PhD scholarship: Load monitoring, failure prediction and design optimization for mechatronic systems

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

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

• You will join the Brussels Photonics (B-PHOT) research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium.
• You will instrument mechatronics systems such as drive trains and electric motors with new optical sensors.
• You will have access to the state-of-the-art laboratories at VUB B-PHOT's facilities  for prototyping, characterising and testing novel optical sensors that enable distributed measurements of mechanical strain and temperature .
• You will deploy and demonstrate the operation of these sensors using selected test rigs in collaboration with other research groups and universities within Flanders Make, the strategic research centre for the manufacturing industry in Flanders.
• The open position is part of the Flanders Make strategic research project “FIBERMECH” - Fiber optics & predictable physical models towards load analysis in mechatronic systems.

PhD project context - For the validation of machine prototypes, mechanical stress and temperature measurements with a known small uncertainty are required to provide feedback to the designers and engineers in view of supporting prototyping and design process. This applies for example to the thermal evaluation of electric motors, for which operating at high power density may lead to excessive temperatures, or to the monitoring of high mechanical stress levels within mechanical structures (system housing & rotating components) during extended mechanical load cycles, which may lead to fatigue issues and eventually to machine failure. Inaccurate knowledge of both quantities (mechanical stress and temperature) is typically dealt with by introducing excessive safety factors, leading to over-dimensioned and hence expensive systems. If the system is under-dimensioned instead, one typically face hte failing of the prototypes during operation. The FIBERMECH project aims to unlock the potential of distributed mechanical strain and temperature estimation in mechatronic systems, at lower cost and with improved accuracy compared to conventional mechanical strain gauges and thermal sensors. A more time/cost-efficient, but elaborate measurement campaign will decrease the number of design iterations and save expensive prototyping and design cycles. To reach this objective, FIBERMECH takes advantage of new optical sensors based on glass optical fibers. More specifically, FIBERMECH will deliver tools and methods for reducint the fiber optic sensor measurement uncertainty in view of accurately identifying strain and temperature in mechatronic systems.
These tools and methods cover various mechatronic products and applications: (1) estimation of mechanical inputs for multiple force components; (2) improved temperature estimation in electric motors; (3) estimation of torsional loads and bending moments for electro-mechanical rotary drivetrains. Industrial and realistic validation cases will also be defined with industrial partners to evaluate the feasibility and the reusability of the research and development results.

For this function, our Brussels Photonics Campus (Gooik) will serve as your home base.