The Center for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics (CmPA) at KU Leuven and the COOLFluiD team are looking for a qualified individual for continuing the development of a high-order Flux Reconstruction (FR) solver for modeling aerothermodynamics and laminar-to-turbulent transition in hypersonic flows, within the framework of a project titled "A new-generation high-order Flux Reconstruction solver to model aerothermodynamics and transition for hypersonic vehicles", funded by the FWO (Flemish Science Foundation).

Our division, the Center for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics (CmPA, wis.kuleuven.be/CmPA), is a leading center in the study of space science. Our team is formed of five professors (plus one active emeritus) and about 40 experts, scientists, postdocs and students working on different aspects of simulation and data analysis applied to solar and space science, astrophysics and other plasma processes (e.g. nuclear fusion energy, industrial, space propulsion & hypersonic re-entry).

Responsibilities:
The candidate will further develop an existing CFD solver using high-order FR methods, currently providing up to P9 (aka 10th order) for solution accuracy and Q2 (aka 3rd order polynomials) for geometric representation, in order to simulate aerothermodynamics and laminar-to-turbulent transition in hypersonic flows around space vehicles on unstructured 3D grids.

The baseline code is fully implemented in C++, uses implicit time stepping to accelerate convergence to steady state and relies upon MPI for parallelization. A partial GPU-enabled (through CUDA) implementation is also available and may be further developed within this project. Parallel I/O algorithms using MPI-IO for writing high-order solution files in TECPLOT or Paraview formats may also be developed.

All developments will be implemented within the COOLFluiD platform https://github.com/andrealani/COOLFluiD/wiki. 

All 5 following skills are considered ESSENTIAL for this position:
1- high-order CFD methods for unstructured meshes (FR preferred, but also DG or Spectral Finite Difference/Volumes);
2- simulating supersonic or hypersonic flows with shocks;
3- 3D visualization with TECPLOT or ParaView or Visit;
4- coding in C/C++;
5- mesh generation of 3D grids with curvilinear elements with Gmsh or Pointwise or other software supporting high-order elements.

In addition, we require proven expertise with modeling hypersonic flows in thermo-chemical non-equilibrium or transition-to-turbulence with RANS.

Offer: This position is initially for 2 years, possibly extendible to 3 or 4 years depending on performance evaluation and funding.

All details about the position and application procedure are available on: https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/60184052. 

The application must be submitted online on the webtool. Please do not e-mail applications. On the other hand, please do not hesitate to request information if needed.