Large-Eddy Simulation of flow in a non-isothermal cavity with adsorption
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simulation-aux-grandes-echelles-de-lecoulement-au-
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europe
Affiliation: IMT Nord Europe
Unit: CERI Energie Environnement
Hierarchical supervisor: Directrice du Centre Énergie Environnement
Nature of
employment: postdoctorat (CDD, durée : 13 mois)
Workplace: Douai, France
Context:
As a school under the supervision of the French Ministry of the
Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, and a member of the
Institut Mines-Télécom, IMT Nord Europe pursues three main missions: training
responsible engineers capable of addressing the major challenges of the 21st
century; conducting research leading to high value-added innovations; supporting
regional development, notably by facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship.
Its objective is to train the engineers of tomorrow, equipped with both advanced
digital technologies and industrial expertise. Ideally located at the crossroads
of Europe—1 hour from Paris, 30 minutes from Brussels, and 1h30 from London—IMT
Nord Europe aims to become a major player in the industrial, digital, and
environmental transformations of the 21st century, combining engineering
sciences and digital technologies in both its teaching and research activities.
With two main teaching and research sites in Lille and Douai, IMT Nord Europe
benefits from over 20,000 m² of laboratory facilities supporting high-level
education and world-class research in the following fields:
Digital Systems
Energy & Environment
Materials & Processes
For more details, please consult the school’s
website: imt-nord-europe.fr.
The position is based within the Energy
Environment Teaching, Research and Innovation Center (CERI EE) (website:
research.imt-nord-europe.fr/energy-and-environment/). The Center hosts around 60
PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers, 30 faculty members, 12 engineers
and technicians, and 2 administrative assistants. It is currently structured
into three thematic research axes: Indoor Environment Quality (QEI), Atmospheric
Observations, Sources & Processes (OSPA), Energy, Fluids and Transfers (EFT).
The successful candidate will join the QEI research axis, which aims to
characterize and understand the determinants of indoor environmental quality in
order to identify action levers ensuring environmental health and occupant
comfort. The research ultimately supports stakeholders in building construction,
renovation, and operation; and informs, raises awareness, and guides public
authorities and the general population. The thematic axis addresses questions
related both to indoor environments in their diversity and to their occupants
and activities. The scientific strategy relies on experimental investigations
and advanced data analyses (including data from numerical modelling and
simulations), covering all components of indoor environmental quality:
materials, construction, ventilation, sanitary and thermal air conditioning,
aerothermal components, exposure, well-being, comfort, and environmental
health.
Research context:
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a scientific field
concerned with detecting, quantifying, and preventing concentrations of
pollutants (gaseous or particulate) known to affect human health or perceived
comfort. Numerical models in IAQ aim to predict the temporal evolution of
pollutant concentrations, which may arise from multiple factors: air-exchange
rates, gas–surface interactions, homogeneous or heterogeneous reactions,
emission sources, variations in air and material temperature, etc.
Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is particularly valuable for IAQ modelling because it
provides detailed spatial distributions of concentration, temperature, and
velocity, helping to better understand interactions at local scales. Simulation
studies are generally more cost-effective than large-scale measurement campaigns
and make it easier to isolate specific phenomena compared with full-scale
experiments. The main limitation of CFD simulations lies in the difficulty of
capturing the full complexity of physical phenomena, often due to simplified
thermal or mass boundary conditions and turbulence models (such as Reynolds-
Averaged Navier–Stokes, RANS), which approximate air-flow velocity fields.
This
project focuses on using high-fidelity CFD turbulence simulations of the Large-
Eddy Simulation (LES) type to represent gas–surface interactions as accurately
as possible within an idealized confined environment, while accounting for
adsorption and thermal transfers at walls.
The research follows two main
directions:
- Fundamental research: improving our understanding of gas–surface
interaction mechanisms in indoor air under coupled heat and mass transfer
conditions; identifying the transfer regimes governed by dimensionless numbers;
designing LES numerical benchmarks to better assess RANS-based simulations.
-
Applied research: designing systems based on physicochemical adsorption
mechanisms to both mitigate indoor air pollution and improve thermal comfort.
Missions:
The first mission is to conduct LES numerical simulations of a
natural-convection-driven flow inside an ideally confined cubic environment. A
temperature difference is imposed on two opposite vertical walls, and the
Rayleigh number is set to 10⁹. A first-order temperature-dependent Langmuir
adsorption kinetic model is applied to internal walls to simulate pollutant
transfer between the gaseous and adsorbed phases. Several simulations will be
carried out by varying the Damköhler number, characterizing the ratio between
reaction and diffusion timescales, in order to determine its influence on air–
wall transfer dynamics.
The second mission to optimize a system designed to
both heat and purify indoor air. Simulations will be performed in 2D and then 3D
to identify optimal geometrical configurations offering the best compromise
between heat and mass transfer enhancement.
Activities:
- Become
proficient with an existing CFD computation code.
- Implement a
kinetic model in an existing CFD environment.
- Carry out numerical
simulations on a computing cluster and perform post-processing.
-
Write scientific publications.
- Organize regular meetings to
summarize and present ongoing work (in English or French).
- In
addition to their research duties, the postdoctoral researcher may teach up to
25 hours per year (TD-equivalent hours) within the institution.
Job
requirements
Candidate Profile: The candidate must hold a PhD in fluid
mechanics with strong skills in CFD. Experience in high-fidelity turbulence
simulations (LES or DNS) is required. Knowledge of heat transfer, natural or
mixed convection, and/or mass and reactive transfers is expected. Prior
experience in adsorption is not mandatory but will be highly appreciated.
Experience with Star-CCM+ or OpenFOAM, as well as with optimization techniques
and programming, is desirable.
Soft skills
- Scientific rigor and strong
writing ability
- Organized, meticulous, autonomous, and responsive
- Good
listening skills
- Communication and teamwork abilities
- Interpersonal
skills
- Pedagogical mindset
Technical Skills
- CFD
- Direct
Numerical Simulation (DNS), Large-Eddy-Simulation (LES)
- Unsteady flows and
turbulence, statistics, FFT, etc.
- Development and programming of numerical
codes and routines
Knowledge
- Good level of English
- Natural or mixed
convection
- Flow similarity
- Optimization and numerical techniques
-
Heat and/or mass and/or reactive transfer
Conditions:
The job is to be
filled as to 01/04/2026 for a period of 13 month (temporary contract).
Information and application methods:
- For any information on the
missions, please contact:
Rémi GAUTIER, PhD, Assistant Professor
remi.gautier@imt-nord-europe.fr
+33 3 27 71 23 35
https://research.imt-nord-
europe.fr/staff/gautier-remi-2/
- For any administrative
information, please contact the Human Resources Department: jobs@imt-nord-
europe.fr
- This job is offered to civil servants on a mobility
basis, or on a contractual basis under public law.
- In addition,
the position can be adapted for a disabled person.
Deadline date for
submissions: 15/01/2025
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