Research Associate in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Applications are invited for a Research Associate position in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, to work as part of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project ‘PermeableCity’. The project, led by Dr Alalea Kia, aims to investigate the heat transfer through novel permeable pavements used in critical infrastructure such as highways, railways and airports. Extreme weather events, such as flooding...

Job listing information

• Reference ENG02209
• Date posted 13 July 2022
• Closing date 10 August 2022

Key information about the role

• Location South Kensington Campus (map)
• Position type Full time, fixed term
• Salary £41,593 – £49,210 plus benefits
• Department Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Category Researcher / Non Clinical Researcher

Job description

Job summary

Applications are invited for a Research Associate position in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, to work as part of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project ‘PermeableCity’. The project, led by Dr Alalea Kia, aims to investigate the heat transfer through novel permeable pavements used in critical infrastructure such as highways, railways and airports.

Extreme weather events, such as flooding and ice/snow build-up, affect the safety of the infrastructure users. Conventional permeable concrete pavements can capture stormwater runoff, however, they are prone to clogging and have poor strength and durability. To solve these long-standing challenges, a next-generation climate change resilient permeable pavement with a new engineered pore structure has been developed. There is a need to characterise the multi-phase behaviour of the pore structure and quantify the pavement thermal and hydraulic performance using pore scale, micro to macro thermo-hydromechanical modelling and laboratory experiments. The PDRA will have access to state-of-the-art test rigs to quantify the efficiency of the novel heated permeable pavement system. The initial term will be one year, with the potential to extend the appointment for an additional 2 years based on the performance. The starting date is flexible, with a preference for August-October 2022.

Duties and responsibilities

You will be responsible for pore-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical modelling (e.g. using OpenFOAM) as well as conducting small scale laboratory testing, using bespoke heating rigs equipped with a range of thermal sensors.

Essential requirements

• Hold a PhD in Engineering, Mathematics, Computing, Physics or a closely related discipline, or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience, as well as an excellent honours degree and ideally masters in Engineering, Mathematics, Computing, Physics or a closely related discipline

• Knowledge of numerical modelling

• Experience in thermo-hydromechanical modelling (ideally from micro to macro scale)

• Experience in CFD

• Practical experience within a research environment and/or publication in relevant journals

• Ability to conduct a detailed review of recent literature

• Ability to communicate effectively via presentations and written publications

• Willingness to work as part of a team and to be open-minded and cooperative

Further information

Applicants are recommended to contact Dr Alalea Kia (alalea.kia@imperial.ac.uk) for further details, informal discussions and information about the project.

Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as a Research Assistant within the salary range £36,694 - £39,888 per annum.

Further information about the post is available in the job description. Applicants wishing to be considered for this post should send a current CV and a one-page covering letter with the application.

Any queries regarding the application process should be directed to Briony Webb at b.webb@imperial.ac.uk.

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and- innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level.

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research- integrity/animal-research/

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex, or sexual orientation. We are an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Disability Confident Leader and a Stonewall Diversity Champion.

Documents

• Job Description.pdf