Research Scientist, Computational Fluid Dynamics

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The Multiphysics Modeling and Flows (MMF) Group in the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division is seeking a software application engineer with expertise in computational mesh generation to generate validated computational results that are used for large-scale, physics-based simulations for variety of applications.

Our Group:

MMF is a computational multiphysics modeling group at the forefront of deploying novel computational engineering techniques for problems that are critical to U.S. national and energy security. We utilize our expertise in numerical discretization techniques, high performance computing, mesh generation, and geometry representation for a wide variety of physics applications. Our intention is to integrate computational modeling with experimental methods and provide innovative solutions for technology growth.

We aspire to help generate technical artifacts (patents) as well as scientific artifacts (journal articles).

Almost all of our simulation codes require a mesh to discretize the spatial domain of interest. For some applications, generating this mesh has historically been a labor-intensive process because it is shown to be a leading driver of computational accuracy. As a result, for certain use cases of interest to ORNL, we are in need of an applications engineer capable of generating meshes and accurate solutions to complex problems.

As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an impressive 80-year legacy of addressing the nation’s most pressing challenges. Our team is made up of over 7,000 dedicated and innovative individuals! Our goal is to create an environment where a variety of perspectives and backgrounds are valued, ensuring ORNL is known as a top choice for employment.

These principles are essential for supporting our broader mission to drive scientific breakthroughs and translate them into solutions for energy, environmental, and security challenges facing the nation.

What does our ideal teammate look like and what will you be doing?

In this role, you will be responsible for working with subject matter experts to understand and refine new CFD application and/or CFD discretization techniques and then lead the implementation of these techniques into large-scale, automatic computational work-flows with particular attention paid to computational accuracy. It is expected that there will be an initial focus on unstructured CFD discretization and conformal mesh generation techniques for applications requiring boundary-layer (i.e., large aspect ratio) meshing capabilities.

Additional application methods of interest include adaptive meshing for design/shape optimization as well as solution optimization.

In addition to software development/application, you will also engage with the broader community of industry, national labs, and academic partners to understand and advance the state-of-the-art in CFD applications and work-flows.

Responsibilities:

• Lead implementation of CFD discretization techniques into large-scale, automatic computational workflows with emphasis on computational accuracy.
• Focus on unstructured CFD discretization and conformal mesh generation for boundary-layer meshing.
• Explore adaptive meshing for design/shape optimization and solution optimization.
• Collaborate with subject matter experts and external partners to advance CFD workflows.

Basic Qualifications:

• An MS in mathematics, computer science, engineering or a related field with 7+ years of experience or a PhD in mathematics, computer science, engineering with relevant experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with mesh generation/CFD applications for unstructured meshes and/or finite element methods
• Experience with CFD discretization techniques for unstructured meshes and/or finite elements with an emphasis on highly scalable algorithms for exascale HPC environments
• Experience with parallel computing environments, HPC in a Linux environment
• Experience with surrogate modeling
• Experience with data analytics techniques
• Familiarity with C++ and GPU programming
• Familiarity…