PhD in railway mechanics - Optimized material in railway crossings

Information about the research/the project/the division
The position will be at the Division of Dynamics, Department of Applied Mechanics. In the activities at the division, we focus on numerical modelling with validation/calibration to full-scale field studies. The general aim is to develop validated solutions and numerical simulation tools to meet our engineering challenges. The Division is part of the Department of Applied Mechanics, which with some 170 employees is one of the leading environments in mechanical and vehicle research. The vision of the Department is to develop sustainable technical solutions through the application of mechanical analysis. To this end, the six divisions of the Department conduct world-leading research, usually in close collaboration with national and international universities and industries. We also offer a wide range of mechanics-based courses on undergraduate and graduate level.

Your project will be part of the activities in the Competence Centre CHARMEC - CHAlmers Railway MEChanics. CHARMEC is a national centre of excellence in railway mechanics established in 1995. CHARMEC is supported by Chalmers and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) and by an Industrial Interests Group comprising ten partners. The long-term CHARMEC research and knowledge bank aims at reducing the railway's costs for production, environment, operation and maintenance while improving safety, reliability and transport quality. Currently, some 25 research projects are carried out within CHARMEC, see www.chalmers.se/charmec.

Major responsibilities
Your major responsibilities as PhD student is to pursue your own doctoral studies. You are expected to develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research verbally and in writing, both in Swedish and in English. The position also includes teaching on Chalmers' undergraduate level corresponding to 20% of full-time work. The PhD position is time-limited to maximum 5 years.

Position summary
You are invited to apply for a PhD student position in the project "Optimized material in railway crossings". The objective of the project is to increase the understanding of the long-term performance and damage modes of different crossing materials by using, developing and integrating state-of-the-art simulation tools in structural dynamics, FEM and material modelling. Furthermore, the goal for the project is to provide guidelines for the selection of crossing material that for a given operational scenario exhibits low deterioration, has a long life and a low life cycle cost. High maintenance costs are related to track switches and crossings (S&C) since these components are subjected to a severe load environment leading to damage in the forms of wear, plastic deformation and rolling contact fatigue cracking. Increasing vehicle speeds and axle loads and wheels with worn profiles induce wheel-rail contact conditions generating high magnitudes of wheel-rail contact forces and slip. A methodology for robust and numerically efficient prediction of rail profile degradation in track switches, integrating several state-of-the-art simulation tools, will be developed. The project will build on the knowledge from several related CHARMEC projects. The goal is to adopt appropriate meta-models and other numerically efficient models in the simulation methodology to calibrate and validate results versus damaged rail profiles measured in the field. An important aspect that needs to be considered when choosing the type of model is the accuracy and how it will influence the overall results from the simulation methodology. Your research and modelling activities will contribute to enhance knowledge in this field.

Qualifications
To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in a relevant field.

A suitable background is a Master of Science (Swedish: civilingenjör) in mechanical engineering, engineering physics or civil engineering with emphasis on solid mechanics and computational methods (e g FEM). The position requires verbal and written communication skills in Swedish and English. If Swedish is not your native language, you should be able to teach in Swedish after two years. Chalmers offers Swedish courses. Since communication of research results is a central part of the work, communicative skills in English (oral as well as in writing) are vital. Furthermore, it will also be expected that you can take on responsibility, take own initiatives and work independently when needed. At the same time it is important that you are good at working in teams. This is especially vital since the current project will interact closely with adjacent disciplines and with industrial partners. Finally, you need to be able to disseminate results and knowledge within existing and new networks.This includes academia, industry and society at large.

Application deadline: 2014-05-30

For questions, please contact:

Professor Jens Nielsen
Dynamics
E-mail: jens.nielsen@chalmers.se

Professor Magnus Ekh
Material and Computational Mechanics
E-mail: magnus.ekh@chalmers.se
Phone: +46 31-772 3479




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