PhD position on Topology Optimization for large-scale systems using HPC > Leuven > Joboolo BE :
Société : KU Leuven Lieu : Leuven Flanders Site source : Talent BE
Persons of all origins and gender are encouraged to apply.
BACKGROUNDTopologyOptimization (TO) is a powerful technology which allows to compute optimized designs of physical systems in a fully automated manner, without any assumed parameterization of the geometry.
From the mathematical standpoint, it consists of solving nonlinear optimization problems constrained by partial differential equations.
This technology allows to improve the performance in various physical settings such as structural design, heat exchangers, or nanophotonic crystals.
Nowadays, there is a growing industry demand for applying these methods to largescale three-dimensional systems, which is challenging due to the need for high computational resources.
There is therefore the need for developing dedicated algorithms leveraging High Performance Computing methods, namely distributed computing on multiple CPUs or GPUs.
PHD PROJECT DESCRIPTION The research aims at developing an efficient computational platform for three-dimensional TopologyOptimization of large-scale multiphysics systems.
The research will first aim at bringing several improvements to the Null Space Optimization algorithm developed for TopologyOptimization (https:
//null-space-optimizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) such as integrating LBFGS acceleration and efficient preconditioners for the quadratic programming solver identifying the descent direction.
A second part of the work will consist in searching for and integrating efficient parallel remeshing methodologies for body-fitted shape updates (see e.g.
Feppon, et.
al., Topologyoptimization of thermal fluid-structure systemsusing body-fitted meshes and parallel computing).
These methods will be applied on several physical systems such as heat transfer devices and stress-constrained designs. The PhD position is supervised by Prof.
F.
Feppon (Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics Section, NUMA, Department of Computer Science) and co-supervised by Prof.
Panos Patrinos (Department of Electrical Engineering, ESAT) at KU Leuven.
At the Department of Computer Science of KU Leuven, the NUMA research unit works on numerical methods, algorithms and software for simulation and data analysis, with applications in many fields in science and engineering.
The research in NUMA focuses, amongst others, on numerical simulation, optimization and high performance computing.
The PhD position lasts for the duration of four years, and is carried out at the University of KU Leuven.
The candidate also takes up a limited amount (approx.
10% of the time) of teaching activities.
The remuneration is generous and is in line with the standard KU Leuven rates.
It consists of a net monthly salary of about 2400 Euro (in case of dependent children or spouse, the amount can be somewhat higher); social security is also included.
Following Belgian law, the salary is automatically adjusted for inflation based on the smoothed health index.
The candidate will be encouraged to present his/her work at international conferences and will be covered by a dedicated travel funding. KU Leuven LeuvenFlanders
