High performance frequency solver for blade-tip/casing contacts

École Polytechnique de Montréal; Canada; On-site; CAD 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading Canadian engineering institution is offering a Ph.D. position focused on improving turbomachine efficiency through a comprehensive research program. The selected candidate will work on developing numerical strategies for blade/casing contact phenomena and will actively involve undergraduate students. Ideal candidates should have a strong background in vibrations, nonlinear dynamics, and programming in Python. The job starts on September 1, 2026, and offers a full-time temporary contract until January 30, 2026.

Qualifications

• Advanced understanding of vibrations and nonlinear dynamics.
• Familiarity with finite element method modeling methodologies.
• Proficient in Python programming.

Responsibilities

• Implement regularized-Lanczos harmonic balance method.
• Develop numerical procedures for harmonic selection.
• Detect isolated branches of solutions.

Skills

Vibrations and nonlinear dynamics

Modelling methodologies

Python programming

Education

Ph.D. in Engineering or related field

Job description

Organisation/Company École Polytechnique de Montréal Research Field Engineering Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Leading Researcher (R4) First Stage Researcher (R1) Established Researcher (R3) Country Canada Application Deadline 30 Jan 2026 - 22:00 (UTC) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Offer Starting Date 1 Sep 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Context and objectives

More stringent environmental constraints and a very competitive global context force manufacturers to face new challenges in order to improve the efficiency of turbomachines, be it in the aerospace sector or for power generation. The impossibility to compromise safety or the environmental footprint of such systems means that in early design stages designers must now understand and account for nonlinear vibration phenomena - such as blade/casing contacts - that are still only partially characterized today. The proposed Ph.D. project is part of a larger research program that aims at developing a numerical strategy for the simulation, the characterization and the consideration of blade/casing contact phenomena within compressor blade design stages using two complementary solution paradigms: in the time domain and in the frequency domain. This research program will give the opportunity to both industrial partners to share their common knowledge and expertise on this topic in order to develop a uniform numerical tool suited both for gas turbines blades and aircraft engine blades.

The proposed research has three main objectives:

• Industrial implementation of the regularized-Lanczos harmonic balance method. (RL-HBM). Based on a previously developed methodology, this first objective aims at developing the frequency domain counterpart of an existing time domain solver.
• Development of a numerical procedure for the live selection of relevant harmonics. While frequency methods are oftentimes considered more efficient than numerical time integration methods, the computational cost and complexity increases dramatically when a large number of nonlinear of degrees of freedom is accounted for. In this context, a live selection of relevant harmonics may significanlty improve numerical performances.
• Detection of isolated branches of solutions. Several recent numerical developments offer promising avenues for the detection of isolated branches of solutions. Based on previous developments relating to the Melnikov principle, this objective intends to provide new insight on where isolated branches of solutions may be found.

Work environment

The selected candidate will be part of the LAVA which currently employ several researchers and graduate students working in areas closely related to that of the proposed research. All numerical developments will be made using the Python programming language. The candidate will benefit from the digital research infrastructure at LAVA (wiki website, gitlab platform, data and computation servers). The candidate will have the opportunity to supervise undergraduate students throughout the duration of the project.

The selected candidate will ideally have advanced notions of vibrations and nonlinear dynamics. A good knowledge of modelling methodologies including the finite element method is preferred. All numerical developments will be carried out using the Python programming language.