PhD Fellowships in Investigation of Biomass-Coal Cofired Burners

Denmark. Aalborg University.

Three years PhD fellow positions are available within the Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine, Department of Energy Technology . The study will be in the Mechanical Engineering programme in the field of “Investigation of Biomass-Coal Cofired Burners using LES ”.

Interested candidates are expected to hold a Masters degree in Mechanical or Chemical Engineering (or related field) and should have a sound background in fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, combustion theory, and numerical methods. Good simulation skills and an interest in practical applications are also required.

Successful candidate will be enrolled as a PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Faculty. The progress of the PhD student will be assessed every six months. It is a prerequisite for continuation of salary payment that the previous progress is approved at the time of the evaluation.

Project Description

The application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in the design of pulverized fuel fired burners has become widely accepted and led to significant improvements in burner performance. To further improve existing burner designs and to form the basis for development of burners specifically de-signed for biomass dust firing and/or oxygen enriched combustion new and more advanced modelling tools must be developed. The objective of this PhD project is to explore the use of large-eddy-simulation (LES) in the area of burner development.

Initially, a literature study must be made to map the international state-of-the-art. The project will focus on implementing the most promising models in an open source CFD code and comparison will be made with experimental data from the literature. Simulation of well-defined flames will be followed by comparison to data collected in a pilot-scale combustor at Brigham Young University.

As the final task simulations has to be undertaken to provide design guidelines for new biomass dust burners both for traditional air-firing and for oxy-fuel combus-tion.

Key topics: Computational fluid dynamics, combustion modeling, programming, numerical methods, and power plant technology.

You may obtain further information from Professor Søren Knudsen Kær, email: skk@iet.aau.dk, phone: +45 9940 9263 or Associate professor Chungen Yin, email: chy@iet.aau.dk, phone +45 9940 9279 concerning the technical aspects of the stipend.

The PhD application form can be downloaded from the following address:
http://adm.aau.dk/fak-tekn/phd/vacant/index.htm

Application is to be forwarded to :

Aalborg Universitet
De Ingeniør-, Natur- og Sundhedsvidenskabelige Fakulteter
Niels Jernes Vej 10
DK-9220 Aalborg Øst

Application should include in four copies: the Masters diploma, publications, Curriculum Vitae, proposal for a PhD study plan and any other material, as well as a list of submitted material. Due to legal constraints electronic applications will not be accepted. Please quote the position reference No.DOA- 562/06-14-28041,

Application deadline is the 15 April 2008.

For further information about stipends and salary contact Ms. Dorte Antonsen, The Faculties of Engi-neering, Science and Medicine, email: doa@adm.aau.dk, phone: +45 9635 7380.