Associate Resreach Scientist

General Description

PREP Research Associate

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

The project will focus on the development and application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques in structural wind engineering, including (i) evaluating the effects of complex topography on wind loads on structures and (ii) quantifying uncertainties in wind loads on tall buildings estimated by CFD techniques. The research work will include (i) development of improved calculation methods and standard provisions for topographic effects on wind loads, (ii) development and application of state-of-the-art computational techniques for simulation of flow around tall buildings in complex terrain, (iii) quantification of uncertainty in computational simulations, (iv) comparison of simulation results with wind tunnel and field measurements, and (v) application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to wind engineering applications. All CFD code will be developed for implementation into the OpenFOAM software.

Key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

• Developing procedures for estimating topographic speedup effects on wind over complex terrain
• Developing CFD modeling procedures for simulating wind flow around tall buildings surrounded by complex topography and/or urban environments, and implementing related codes in OpenFOAM
• Performing numerical simulations and quantifying uncertainties in the simulation results
• Analyzing simulation data and comparing them with measured data from wind tunnel tests.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or a related field.
• Prior research experience and contributions in structural engineering, wind engineering, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and scientific computing, including at least five peer-reviewed journal papers on applications of Large Eddy Simulation methods in wind engineering.
• At least five years of experience with code development and maintenance using OpenFOAM CFD software.
• At least five years of experience in using high-performance computing systems for massively parallel computational simulations
• Strong programming and analytical skills for pre-/post-processing and analysis (e.g., Pointwise, Paraview, Tecplot, MATLAB, and Python)
• U.S. citizenship preferred

Application Instructions

Please upload the following with your application:

• CV/Resume

Please limit C.V to 3 pages only and ONLY include a valid email address for your contact info. Your resume will not be considered if the following information is included on your CV/resume.

• Self portraits
• Phone number
• Home address/Country
• Citizenship status
• Languages spoken
• Sex/Gender
• Personal Interest