PhD Student - Analysis of supersonic reactive mixing layers for supersonic propulsion (R1)

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

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If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

The study of supersonic mixing layers is a cornerstone of advancing technologies in aerospace engineering, particularly in applications such as high-speed propulsion systems, scramjets, and hypersonic flight. Supersonic mixing layers arise in scenarios where two streams of gas, traveling at different velocities and thermodynamic states, interact under compressible flow conditions. These interactions are characterized by complex phenomena, including shock waves, turbulence, compressibility effects, and thermodynamic non-equilibrium. Understanding and predicting these phenomena are crucial for optimizing performance, stability, and efficiency in high-speed flow systems. Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) provide an excellent tool for studying supersonic mixing layers, as they resolve all relevant turbulence scales without relying on empirical models. This capability enables DNS to offer unique insights into the fundamental physics governing these flows, from the inception of instabilities to the development of turbulence and mixing. However, the computational demands of DNS are significant, particularly in supersonic regimes, where capturing shock-boundary layer interactions, compressibility effects, and chemical reactions (if present) requires advanced numerical techniques and high-performance computing resources.

This PhD position offers the opportunity to contribute to advancements in fundamental understanding on complex physics at high Mach number conditions along with numerical algorithms, and parallel computing strategies, all of which have broader applications beyond this specific domain. This PhD position offers a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of computational fluid dynamics and contribute to addressing critical challenges in the aerospace industry, paving the way for both academic and applied breakthroughs in supersonic flow research. The research team that the applicant will be involved is the Propulsion Technologies Group at CASE Department of BSC. The team is a multidisciplinary group with researchers from all disciplines and with strong background in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The team is involved in many EU and industrial projects related to this topic, where the successful activities and the publications on highly ranked scientific journals give the proved expertise.