Postdoctoral Position in Virtual Design of Porous Materials Structures

Chalmers University of Technology - Department of Mathematical Sciences

Gothenburg, Sweden

The Division of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, together with the Agrifood and Bioscience unit of RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, invites applications for one two-year postdoctoral position starting September 1, 2018, or as agreed. The successful candidate will be offered a one-year employment at Chalmers, followed by a one-year employment at RISE Agrifood and Bioscience.

The aim of the project is to develop and apply methods for image analysis of two- and three-dimensional imaging data of porous materials structures, characterization of porous materials, computer-based generation of virtual materials structures, and simulation of mass transport properties. The project constitutes part of a collaboration with several major Swedish industries, as well as with experimentalists in academia, and the methods and software that are developed within the project will be applied to real, industry-relevant materials used in for example hygiene products, packaging materials, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Highly accurate automatic or semi-automatic image analysis methods are crucial for segmentation of imaging data, in particular for three-dimensional data where the sheer size of data sets makes exhaustive manual segmentation too time-consuming. Also, accurate image analysis methods are necessary prerequisites for accurate spatial/statistical/geometrical characterization of pore and solid phases. Algorithms for both segmentation and characterization have been developed within the VINNExcellence Centre SuMo Biomaterials (SuMo) and the project ‘Material structures seen through microscopy and statistics’ funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. However, further development and adaption to key industrial applications is needed.

Further, virtual generation of materials structures and virtual exploration of microstructural design parameters are crucial to avoid very costly and time-consuming experimental studies. The aim is to use the accumulated knowledge of materials structures and their properties to generate realistic virtual materials. Simulation of effective mass transport properties can then be utilized to gain understanding of the importance of different microstructural parameters for performance in real applications. On top of the afore-mentioned projects, tools and methods for generation of synthetic materials structures are also developed in the project ‘Mass transport properties of soft porous granular materials’ funded by the Swedish Research Council.

In summary, your task will be to develop methods and software for image analysis, microstructure characterization, generation of virtual materials, and simulation of mass transport properties, and to use these tools in a range of applications and collaborate with industry to study relevant problems. The software is also intended to be used by the industrial partners at the end of the project. The goal is a deep understanding of the relationships between microstructure and properties that will benefit both further research and applications.

This position is one of three postdoctoral positions announced within the project CoSiMa, which is part of the SuMo Biomaterials center (www.chalmers.se/sumo). The three postdocs are intended to work closely together to provide computational and experimental tools to enable numerical simulation of a wide range of phenomena in liquid and molecular transport in real-world materials.

Qualifications

You should have a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics/Mathematical Statistics/Computational Science, or equivalent, completed before the starting date of employment and not earlier than three years before the application deadline. Fluency in English is expected. Experience in image analysis and processing, spatial statistics, high-performance computing, and good programming skills is meriting.

About the division and the department

At the Division of Applied Mathematics and Statistics we conduct research at a high international level in areas such as biomathematics, bioinformatics, computational mathematics, optimisation, mathematical statistics, kinetic theory. More information about our research groups is available on the website http://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/math/research/research-groups/.

We have an international environment with frequent exchanges with other universities around the world. The department provides a friendly, creative, and supportive atmosphere with a steady flow of international guests. At the division there are many committed teachers with extensive and broad experience of all aspects of higher education. Together with the Divisions of Algebra and Geometry and Analysis and Probability we form the academic part of the department of Mathematical Sciences, which is a joint department of Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg, and one of the largest in mathematics in the Nordic countries with a faculty core of about 80. More information about us is available on the website http://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/math/.

At the Agrifood and Bioscience unit at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden we conduct research and development in food, agriculture, and bioscience related topics including quantitative microscopy, image analysis, computational materials science, hetereogeneous and viscoelastic materials, microbiology and food processing. The unit comprises about 100 people, and is part of the division of Bioscience and Materials at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. More information about us is available on the website http://www.sp.se/en/units/risebiovet/fb/Sidor/default.aspx.