Senior CFD Analysis Engineer: Nuclear Thermals & Equity

Doist; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Equity ownership

Medical benefits

Unlimited PTO (onsite)

Lunch provided onsite

PPE stipend

Career growth/ownership

Job summary

Valar Atomics is seeking a Senior CFD Analysis Engineer to own high‑fidelity CFD and thermal‑hydraulic analyses for reactor internals and balance‑of‑plant systems. You will translate physical problems into Ansys Fluent models, establish V&V baselines, and mentor junior analysts to ensure regulatory readiness.

You will collaborate closely with Neutronics, FEA, and systems teams, delivering robust results for design, safety, and licensing under ASME/NQA‑1 frameworks.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering (or closely related field) required.
• Master’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering preferred.
• 8+ years of production-grade CFD experience.

Responsibilities

• Plan and perform high-fidelity CFD and conjugate-heat-transfer analyses in Ansys Fluent for reactor thermal-hydraulics, including geometry prep, meshing, turbulence-model selection, solver setup, and convergence assessment.
• Establish and document the verification and validation basis for CFD work per ASME V&V 20, including mesh-convergence studies and benchmarking against test data.
• Provide and receive boundary conditions across streams—supplying heat-transfer and loss coefficients to Flownex, exchanging power/heat-source distributions with Neutronics, and handing loads to FEA for thermal-stress evaluation.
• Lead technical problem definition, perform independent review of analyses, and produce reports and calculation packages meeting NQA-1 / 10 CFR 50 Appendix B docs.
• Interface with thermal-fluid, structural, and neutronics teams to build coupled multiphysics workflows.

Skills

Turbulence modeling (RANS k-ε / k-ω S

Conjugate heat transfer

Multiphase and species transport

Scripting/automation (Python)

HPC workflow

Technical leadership/mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering

Master's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering

Tools

Ansys Fluent

Flownex

Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

Job description

Valar Atomics is seeking a Senior CFD Analysis Engineer to own high‑fidelity CFD and thermal‑hydraulic analyses for reactor internals and balance‑of‑plant systems. You will translate physical problems into Ansys Fluent models, establish V&V baselines, and mentor junior analysts to ensure regulatory readiness.

You will collaborate closely with Neutronics, FEA, and systems teams, delivering robust results for design, safety, and licensing under ASME/NQA‑1 frameworks.