Postdoctoral researcher in mechanical modeling of human soft tissues

Information about the research, the division and deparment
The Division of Vehicle Safety is seeking a new Post doc in collaboration with Division of Dynamics to start during 2020. Both these divisions are parts of the Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences. The research will be conducted within the project “Development of models of human soft tissues intended to be used in advance Human Body Models” funded by the Horizon 2020 EU-project OSSCAR. The work will have a strong coupling to ongoing injury prevention research within the OSCCAR project but also be linked to other projects at the divisions. The intended outcome is to improve simulation tools used in traffic safety research, but also to carry out fundamental research in computational mechanics.

Human Body Modelling using advanced Finite Element modelling techniques is a challenging research activity requiring different expertise - biomechanical knowledge and material and computational mechanics. To keep the divisions at the forefront of global injury prevention research, a post-doc position is needed for work on the development of soft tissues material models for the use in Human Body Models.

The research at the Division of Vehicle Safety investigates why and how often accidents and incidents occur, driver behavior in different traffic situations, and how injuries occur. The Injury Prevention (IP) group is responsible for investigating the injury mechanisms at body, organ and tissue level as well as the dynamic response of the human body to applied mechanical loads. The IP research group conducts research activities in the field of Human Body Modelling (HBM) in close collaboration with industry and SAFER - The Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers. The research at the Division of Dynamics is directed towards various dynamic, vibration, and wave propagation problems, sometimes with coupling to other physical phenomena such as thermodynamics, piezoelectricity or wear.

The details of the departmental research activities may be found here.

Major responsibilities
In this position you will contribute to the development of evaluation tools that will be used when designing and evaluating superior restraints, e.g. those fitted vehicles, riders of bicycles and those used in leisure activities, with the aim to reduce injuries.

The purpose of the project is to develop models of human soft tissues, e.g. muscle tissues, suitable to predict humanlike response at load rates typical in car crashes. In automotive applications, numerical Human Body Models (HBMs) have become increasingly important since full-scale physical experiments are expensive, time-consuming, and do not fully consider the variability of the human population. In the development of HBMs there is a need for models that can describe soft tissues under the rapid loading relevant for analyzing the human body in impact situations, which is needed to develop safer vehicles. However, since the experimental data used to determine material parameters is scarce (due to ethical considerations and practical difficulties) and has significant spread, a parallel goal is to develop a computational framework to estimate errors in the subsequent HBM analysis. A framework based on previously developed methods to estimate discretization and model errors using duality techniques will serve as starting point, which puts this Post doc project at the fore front in the area of computational mechanics.

Your major responsibility as postdoc is to perform your own research in a research group. The position also includes teaching on undergraduate and master's levels as well as supervising master's and/or PhD students to a certain extent. Another important aspect involves collaboration within academia and with society at large. The position is meritorious for future research duties within academia as well as industry/the public sector.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of two years (1+1).

Qualifications
To qualify as a postdoctoral researcher you must have a doctoral degree in applied mechanics with emphasis on dynamics, impact mechanics, material mechanics, and computational mechanics, the degree should generally not be older than three years. A strong interest in modeling and computer simulation (e.g. FEM) is required.

You must have experience in material modelling of biological (soft tissue) materials (at least 2 years) and experience (at least 1 year) with applied and theoretical research using FE HBM. In addition, expertise in LS-Dyna.

Knowledge of the Swedish language is desirable but not a requirement. Since communication of research results is a central part of the work, communicative skills in English (fluent in oral as well as in writing) are vital. Furthermore, it will also be expected that you are motivated, can take on responsibility, take own initiatives and work independently as these are characteristics of a Post Doc. Finally, you need to be able to disseminate results and knowledge in different context, including research partners, academia, industry and society at large.

Experience with material testing or similar biomechanical experimental work and a master's or PhD course work in solid mechanics and dynamics are meritorious.

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Our offer to you
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About the application procedure here

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