"Mechanical Engineer for Developing Battery Box Protection in Electrical Vehicles"

Do you have a creative, curious and driven nature? Are you eager to combine numerical simulations, theory and experiments to bring fundamental science into real world applications? Do you want to help contribute to greener mobility? We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated mechanical engineer specializing in metamaterials for impact mitigation. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in the research, design, and development of dissipative metamaterials aimed at enhancing the safety and performance of electric vehicle (EV) battery enclosures.

Join us! This Mechanical Engineer position is part of an ERC funded project entitled “Metasafe”. This role is at the forefront of materials innovation, leveraging cutting-edge metamaterial designs to improve crash resistance, lightweighting, and energy dissipation in high-impact environments. The project leader is Corentin Coulais. More information on the project activities can be found at Corentin Coulais – Machine Materials Lab.

This is what you will do: You develop and optimize dissipative metamaterials for energy absorption applications in EV battery enclosures. You utilize advanced modeling techniques (e.g., FEA) to simulate impact scenarios and predict material performance. You conduct computational research to analyze the mechanical behavior of metamaterials under dynamic loading conditions and perform experimental validation. You collaborate with interdisciplinary teams including materials scientists, mechanical engineers, and automotive industry partners to integrate metamaterials into vehicle structures. You prototype and test metamaterial-based solutions, ensuring compliance with safety and industry regulations. You work closely with manufacturing teams to develop scalable production methods for metamaterial-based components. You contribute to the intellectual property strategy, including patent filings and technology commercialization efforts. You publish and present research findings at industry conferences. Your results will help us establish the potential of metamaterials.

What we ask of you: You are currently about to obtain, or have recently obtained a post-HBO or a Masters’ degree in mechanical engineering, physics, or a related discipline. Experience in FEA, CAD, mechanics/ mechanical engineering, prototyping/ testing. It is a preference if you additionally have experience in nonlinear structural FEA (buckling, plasticity, large deformations, or self-contact).

This is what we offer you: We offer a temporary employment contract for 30.4 to 38 hours per week for a period of 12 months. The preferred starting date is as soon as possible. Extension is possible depending on available budget in the project. The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 3,382 and € 5,057 (scale 8 or 9). This does not include 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% year-end allowance. The UFO profile Education and Research Technician- O profile 4 or 3 is applicable. The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable. You will work in this team: The Faculty of Science has a student body of around 8,000, as well as 1,800 members of staff working in education, research or support services. Researchers and students at the Faculty of Science are fascinated by every aspect of how the world works, be it elementary particles, the birth of the universe or the functioning of the brain. The project will be carried out within the Soft Matter Group and the Institute of Physics of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) at the Machine Materials Laboratory, headed by Dr. Corentin Coulais and in collaboration with the startup company Metamaterial Works to be founded this year; The laboratory has recently pioneered the field of dissipative metamaterials (see recent articles). The lab benefits from an exceptional scientific environment, in soft and condensed matter, biological physics, computational physics and advanced materials.