ENGINEER - RESEARCH ENGINEER - Computational Material & Structural Integrity at Southwest Research Institute

Who We Are:

We develop and apply advanced computational methods to investigate the performance of a variety of engineering materials that are used in a wide range of applications, especially estimating the life and reliability of high-consequence engineering applications.

Objectives of this Role:

• Join our team to perform fundamental and applied research through the development of advanced fatigue crack growth lifing methods for material and structural integrity assessments.
• Participate in individual and collaborative research projects that deal with applications in aerospace, engine, and manufacturing sectors.
• Apply principles in advanced engineering mechanics, materials science, uncertainty quantification, and applied mathematics to solve unique problems.
• Learn business development skills to support contract research programs.
• Interact with commercial and government clients.

Daily and Monthly Responsibilities:

• Develop, test, implement, integrate, and document numerical algorithms for structural integrity and life prediction in user-friendly software: NASGRO® and DARWIN®.
• Ensure accuracy, precision, and consistency of predictions implemented within high-criticality commercial software.
• Solve fracture mechanics problems by solid continuum mechanics with finite element analysis.
• Build large solution ensembles in Abaqus using Python scripting capabilities.
• Utilize principles from computational geometry to discretize components.
• Write reports and manuals to document results and to provide guidance for software use.
• Communicate effectively with colleagues, collaborators, and customers. Resolve user issues encountered during usage.
• Prepare proposals, reports, and technical papers.
• Manage tasks and projects to completion within scope, budget, and schedule constraints within a team environment.
• Work independently with relatively little supervision and function effectively as a part of project teams.
• Provide specialist support to ensure material integrity and structural performance for projects focused on advanced applications in various sectors.
• Qualify materials and certify components using modeling, simulation, and other tools per best practices.

Requirements:

• Requires a Masters or a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, Civil Engineering, or similar engineering degree.
• 0-5 years: Must have experience and/or training in fracture mechanics, fatigue, finite element analysis, solid continuum mechanics, probabilistic methods, mechanical behavior of engineering metals, materials science, and software development.
• 0-5 years: Must have experience using solid mechanics and finite element analysis to solve problems related to structural integrity at the component scale. Experience with ABAQUS, Fortran, Python, and formal software development processes is highly desirable.
• 0-5 years: Experience with recent computational integrity techniques in materials science is desirable, including crystal plasticity, fatigue initiation mechanisms, reduced-order modeling, and physics informed AI/ML.
• 0-5 years: Experience with recent advances in computational mechanics targeted towards structural applications is desirable, including contact algorithms, constitutive modeling, multi-physics, meshing algorithms, enriched methods, and automatic crack growth.
• A valid/clear driver's license is required