Postdoctoral position Large-Eddy Simulation of flow in a non-isothermal cavity with adsorption in temporary contract at IMT Nord Europe

Affiliation: IMT Nord Europe

Unit: CERI Energie Environnement

Hierarchical supervisor: Directrice du Centre Énergie Environnement

Nature of employment: postdoctorat (CDD, durée : 13 mois)

Workplace: Douai, France

Context:

As a school under the supervision of the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, and a member of the Institut Mines-Télécom, IMT Nord Europe pursues three main missions: training responsible engineers capable of addressing the major challenges of the 21st century; conducting research leading to high value-added innovations; supporting regional development, notably by facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship. Its objective is to train the engineers of tomorrow, equipped with both advanced digital technologies and industrial expertise. Ideally located at the crossroads of Europe—1 hour from Paris, 30 minutes from Brussels, and 1h30 from London—IMT Nord Europe aims to become a major player in the industrial, digital, and environmental transformations of the 21st century, combining engineering sciences and digital technologies in both its teaching and research activities.

With two main teaching and research sites in Lille and Douai, IMT Nord Europe benefits from over 20,000 m² of laboratory facilities supporting high-level education and world-class research in the following fields:

•          Digital Systems

•          Energy & Environment

•          Materials & Processes

For more details, please consult the school’s website: imt-nord-europe.fr.

The position is based within the Energy Environment Teaching, Research and Innovation Center (CERI EE) (website: research.imt-nord-europe.fr/energy-and-environment/). The Center hosts around 60 PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers, 30 faculty members, 12 engineers and technicians, and 2 administrative assistants. It is currently structured into three thematic research axes: Indoor Environment Quality (QEI), Atmospheric Observations, Sources & Processes (OSPA), Energy, Fluids and Transfers (EFT). The successful candidate will join the QEI research axis, which aims to characterize and understand the determinants of indoor environmental quality in order to identify action levers ensuring environmental health and occupant comfort. The research ultimately supports stakeholders in building construction, renovation, and operation; and informs, raises awareness, and guides public authorities and the general population. The thematic axis addresses questions related both to indoor environments in their diversity and to their occupants and activities. The scientific strategy relies on experimental investigations and advanced data analyses (including data from numerical modelling and simulations), covering all components of indoor environmental quality: materials, construction, ventilation, sanitary and thermal air conditioning, aerothermal components, exposure, well-being, comfort, and environmental health.

Research context:

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a scientific field concerned with detecting, quantifying, and preventing concentrations of pollutants (gaseous or particulate) known to affect human health or perceived comfort. Numerical models in IAQ aim to predict the temporal evolution of pollutant concentrations, which may arise from multiple factors: air-exchange rates, gas–surface interactions, homogeneous or heterogeneous reactions, emission sources, variations in air and material temperature, etc.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is particularly valuable for IAQ modelling because it provides detailed spatial distributions of concentration, temperature, and velocity, helping to better understand interactions at local scales. Simulation studies are generally more cost-effective than large-scale measurement campaigns and make it easier to isolate specific phenomena compared with full-scale experiments. The main limitation of CFD simulations lies in the difficulty of capturing the full complexity of physical phenomena, often due to simplified thermal or mass boundary conditions and turbulence models (such as Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes, RANS), which approximate air-flow velocity fields.

This project focuses on using high-fidelity CFD turbulence simulations of the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) type to represent gas–surface interactions as accurately as possible within an idealized confined environment, while accounting for adsorption and thermal transfers at walls.

The research follows two main directions:

•          Fundamental research: improving our understanding of gas–surface interaction mechanisms in indoor air under coupled heat and mass transfer conditions; identifying the transfer regimes governed by dimensionless numbers; designing LES numerical benchmarks to better assess RANS-based simulations.

•          Applied research: designing systems based on physicochemical adsorption mechanisms to both mitigate indoor air pollution and improve thermal comfort.

Missions:

The first mission is to conduct LES numerical simulations of a natural-convection-driven flow inside an ideally confined cubic environment. A temperature difference is imposed on two opposite vertical walls, and the Rayleigh number is set to 10⁹. A first-order temperature-dependent Langmuir adsorption kinetic model is applied to internal walls to simulate pollutant transfer between the gaseous and adsorbed phases. Several simulations will be carried out by varying the Damköhler number, characterizing the ratio between reaction and diffusion timescales, in order to determine its influence on air–wall transfer dynamics.

The second mission to optimize a system designed to both heat and purify indoor air. Simulations will be performed in 2D and then 3D to identify optimal geometrical configurations offering the best compromise between heat and mass transfer enhancement.

Activities:

•          Become proficient with an existing CFD computation code.

•          Implement a kinetic model in an existing CFD environment.

•          Carry out numerical simulations on a computing cluster and perform post-processing.

•          Write scientific publications.

•          Organize regular meetings to summarize and present ongoing work (in English or French).

•          In addition to their research duties, the postdoctoral researcher may teach up to 25 hours per year (TD-equivalent hours) within the institution.

Candidate Profile:

The candidate must hold a PhD in fluid mechanics with strong skills in CFD. Experience in high-fidelity turbulence simulations (LES or DNS) is required. Knowledge of heat transfer, natural or mixed convection, and/or mass and reactive transfers is expected. Prior experience in adsorption is not mandatory but will be highly appreciated. Experience with Star-CCM+ or OpenFOAM, as well as with optimization techniques and programming, is desirable.

Soft skills

• Scientific rigor and strong writing ability

• Organized, meticulous, autonomous, and responsive

• Good listening skills

• Communication and teamwork abilities

• Interpersonal skills

• Pedagogical mindset

Technical Skills

• CFD

• Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), Large-Eddy-Simulation (LES)

• Unsteady flows and turbulence, statistics, FFT, etc.

• Development and programming of numerical codes and routines

Knowledge

• Good level of English

• Natural or mixed convection

• Flow similarity

• Optimization and numerical techniques

• Heat and/or mass and/or reactive transfer

Conditions:

The job is to be filled as to 01/04/2026 for a period of 13 month (temporary contract).

Information and application methods:

•          For any information on the missions, please contact: 

Rémi GAUTIER, PhD, Assistant Professor

remi.gautier@imt-nord-europe.fr

+33 3 27 71 23 35

https://research.imt-nord-europe.fr/staff/gautier-remi-2/

•          For any administrative information, please contact the Human Resources Department: jobs@imt-nord-europe.fr

•          This job is offered to civil servants on a mobility basis, or on a contractual basis under public law.

•          In addition, the position can be adapted for a disabled person. 

Deadline date for submissions: 15/01/2025