PhD or Postdoc Position Eco-efficient Aircraft Routing

The eco impact of aviation is not just defined by the sector’s emissions, but also by the formation of warming contrails. And as the sector keeps growing, securing long-distance mobility, it is crucial to significantly reduce contrail formation by optimising flight routes. Depending on your seniority, you will conduct research into minimising warming-contrail formation as a PhD or Postdoc candidate at TU Delft. Your work will be part of the EU-funded BeCoM (Better Contrails Mitigation) project, which aims to improve the prediction of persistent contrails.

You will further develop the current climate model by including different platforms and integrating a weather model. In addition, you will expand the scope from cruise condition to the entire flight profile. Using your improved model, you will devise air traffic optimisation strategies, which you will implement in the air traffic simulator. Then you will run simulations and analyse the atmospheric response. To gain insights and align your research with other studies, you’ll work closely with the BeCoM project partners, including leading weather forecasters, research institutes, an air traffic management company and research simulation specialists.

In addition, you will coach bachelor and master students and supervise their projects. As a PhD candidate, you will also receive all the training you need to evolve. And if you’re a Postdoc candidate, you will prepare for an academic career, taking on a more leading role in education, project coordination and formulating project proposals. Your homebase will be the

Aircraft Noise and Climate Effects group, where you’ll be joining our friendly, highly motivated and supportive team of 3 full Professors, 3 assistant Professors, two Postdocs and more than twenty PhD students. We share a mission to reduce the environmental impact of aerospace operations, while improving safety and efficiency. Ours is an open-minded, inspiring and friendly atmosphere, in which you’ll exchange knowledge and ideas.