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Applications are invited for a Research Associate position in the Resilient Sustainable Infrastructure Group (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/resilient-sustainable-infrastructure) within 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 thermal efficiency, at a large scale, of a heated permeable pavement system in transferring heat and its potential in mitigating ice/snow build-up. The analysis will focus on coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical models as well as a large-scale laboratory heat dissipation set-up.

Extreme weather events, such as flooding and ice/snow build-up, affect the safety of the infrastructure users. Conventional permeable concrete pavements can capture storm water 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 quantify the pavement’s large-scale thermal efficiency using numerical modelling and laboratory experiments. You will be primarily based at Imperial College London but will set-up the outdoor heat dissipation experiment and collect the initial dataset on the thermal efficiency of a novel heated permeable pavement system in removing ice/snow at the National Green Infrastructure Facility at Newcastle University. The initial term will be one year, with the potential to extend the appointment based on performance. The starting date is flexible, with a preference for between March-June 2023.

Duties and responsibilities

You will be responsible for quantifying the performance of the novel permeable pavement using large-scale thermal testing (equipped with a range of temperature sensors and data loggers), as well as undertaking thermal numerical modelling (e.g. using COMSOL, ABAQUS).

Essential requirements

• Hold a PhD in Engineering or a closely related field, or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience


• Knowledge of different heat transfer mechanisms such as natural/forced convection in fluid and heat conduction in porous media


• Experience in laboratory thermal testing, setting-up a laboratory test rig, collecting data (e.g. LabView), post processing and validating the experimental data (e.g. using Python or Matlab)


• Experience in numerical modelling, particularly heat diffusion, coupled problems and thermo-hydraulic phenomena


• Willingness to set-up/periodically visit the large-scale outdoor testing at Newcastle University


• 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 ([email protected]) for informal discussions about the project.

Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as a Research Assistant within the salary range £38,194 - £41,388 per annum.

Further information about the post is available in the job description. Please include a CV and a one-page cover letter with your application.

Any queries regarding the application process should be directed to Briony Webb at [email protected].

The College is currently trialling a Work Location Framework until early 2023. Hybrid working may be considered for this role and the role holder may be expected to work 60% or more of their time onsite, with 40% the minimum time spent onsite. The opportunity for hybrid working will be discussed at interview.

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 which are ultimately aimed towards finding new treatments and making scientific and medical advances, and where there are no satisfactory or reasonably practical alternatives to their use. 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. Find out more about animal research at Imperial.

Documents

• Job Description - updated 03.23.pdf