JOB ENVIRONMENT:
Institut Mines-Télécom is the leading public group of engineering and management Grandes Écoles in France. Consisting of eight public graduate Grandes Écoles and two subsidiary graduate schools, Institut Mines-Télécom leads and develops a rich ecosystem of partner schools, economic, academic and institutional partners, key players in education, research and economic development.
Mines Saint-Étienne, a graduate school of the Institut Mines-Télécom, is responsible for education, research, innovation, industrial transfer and scientific culture dissemination. With 2,500 students, 500 staff and a budget of €50m, it has 3 campuses dedicated to the industry of the future, health and well-being, and digital sovereignty and microelectronics. It is ranked in the top 15 graduate engineering schools in France and the top 500 universi-ties worldwide.
The 2023-2027 strategy of Mines Saint-Etienne is in line with that of Institut Mines Telecom. It aims to:
• Support the ecological, digital and generational transitions and educate the people involved
• Support national and European sovereignty in microelectronics and digital technolog
To support this strategy, it is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher in the field of industrial processes engineering and physical sciences.
To support this strategy, it is recruiting a PhD student.
JOB DESCRIPTION:
The SPIN Chemical Engineering research center develops its research activities in the field of Chemical Engineering applied to dispersed systems : grains, particles, drops, bubbles, porous media… Most of its staff belongs to the CNRS joint research units George Friedel Laboratory
UMR 5307 and Environment, City and Society Laboratory UMR 5600. Currently, more than 80 employees and students are working at the SPIN Centre in a stimulating interdisciplinary research environment. A great number of collaborations are established with research groups worldwide as well as with SMEs or major industrial companies.
- The Granular Matter Handling and Processing research team is attempting to bridge macroscopic features such as flowability, reaction extent, … with the properties of individual particles (size, shape, chemical composition, …) and the suspending medium (flow regime, temperature, pressure, composition, …). This approach is applied to powders and grains in a gas as well as to concentrated pastes such as cement and concrete.
- The position will take part in a collaborative research activities with ORANO our industrial partner who is a recognized international leading operator in the field of nuclear materials. Orano delivers solutions to address present and future global energy and health challenges. Its expertise and mastery of cutting-edge technologies enable Orano to offer its customers high value-added products and services throughout the entire fuel cycle.
- Our two groups are joining our efforts to understand field observations in a pneumatic transport line.
- Granular material is a specific state of the matter failing to be described by usual behavior laws usually applied to fluids or solids. However in a vast majority of examples manufactured equipment require the handling and processing of particulate material. Such a state of matter is formed by a collection of a large number of individual solid particles. Individually these particles are successfully described with conventional physical laws. However a complexity emerges from the large number of particles involved which produces unexpected behaviour visible in nature as well as on manufacturing lines.
- Among the various powders and grains processing operations used in the industry, pneumatic conveying is a very common technical option for the continuous conveying over distances ranging from 1cm to 100m. Its relatively low cost and flexibility explains its use, despite the complex interaction between the imposed gas flow dragging along the granular phase. A large variety of transport regimes are indeed accessible depending on the imposed gas flow rate, the granular material properties and its transport rate.
- In particular the interactions between the wall material forming the conveying line and its geometry or inclination is poorly studied and may explain some of the observed performance fluctuations. Moreover, a better understanding of the wall-particle interaction on the granular conveying physics may open opportunities for future developments in the field of powder technologies.
- The applicant will undertake series of experimental and theoretical research actions in order to explore field observations reported by our partner. A scientific literature survey will be required in order to provide an up-to-date overview of the topic, suggesting state-of-the-art observation methods. A review of interfacial mechanisms studied and reported by the scientific community in various granular flow experiments is expected.
- The applicant will also support our industrial partner in collecting field data and improving existing pneumatic transport monitoring or event suggesting and implementing new measurement setups.
- By bringing together observation data and existing or developed models, the applicant will have to contribute to the scientific production of Mines Saint-Etienne together with the development of its own scientist profile.
- Regular reports and meetings with the current research project partners are expected.
Tasks may change depending on the needs of the department and Mines Saint-Etienne.
The position is based on the Saint-Étienne campus.
