At NTNU we have announced a new PhD position in Fire safety and computational modelling (CFD) of fires in wooden buildings.
About the job
For a position as a PhD Candidate, the goal is a completed doctoral education up to an obtained doctoral degree.
At the Department of Energy and Process Engineering we have a vacancy for a PhD position within fire safety and fire development in buildings with wooden surfaces.
For a position as a PhD Candidate, the goal is a completed doctoral education up to an obtained doctoral degree.
Background: Timber can be used as a structural and decorative material in both small and large buildings. It has many advantages and is increasingly popular. Buildings with timber structures can contribute to fulfil some of the sustainable development goals set up by the United Nations. On the other hand, wood is combustible and can contribute to the growth and spread of fires in buildings. More knowledge is needed to better understand the development of a fire, its interaction with ventilation and wood surfaces, and the possibilities of mitigation and suppression.
The results of the PhD-project shall lead to more fire safe use of wood in buildings. The project will build on experiences from previous work in this field, including previous FRIC projects.
The project work will have emphasis on computational work, i.e., investigations using CFD and development of submodels. A focus will be on the interactions between fire development and ventilation of the compartment. It will include collaboration and participation in experimental work. Close collaboration and communication with relevant actors in the FRIC network are required to optimize the impact of the work in the relevant areas. The exact problem specification will be made in cooperation with the supervisors.
The PhD candidate will work within the research activity Fire development and suppression in FRIC – Fire Research and Innovation Centre, in Trondheim (www.fric.no/en). FRIC was established 2019 in Trondheim by RISE Fire Research (www.risefr.com), SINTEF (www.sintef.no/en), NTNU, and a number of industry and public partners. The centre is funded by the Gjensidige foundation (https://www.gjensidigestiftelsen.no/english-information/en/) and partners of the centre, and administered through the Research Council of Norway. The main goal of the centre is improved evidence-based decision-making and solutions for fire safety and fire protection in the built environment.
Your immediate leader is Professor Ivar S. Ertesvåg (https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/ivar.s.ertesvag).
Duties of the position
- Engage in theoretical research, computational and practical experimental work.
- Perform mandatory coursework as part of the PhD-education.
- Plan and execute comprehensive, independent research under supervision.
- Interact and collaborate with researchers and FRIC partners.
- Communicate results effectively through research journal publications, conference presentations and other forms of communication to a diverse range of audiences.
- Submit and defend a doctoral thesis.
Required selection criteria
- You must have a professionally relevant background in mechanical or civil engineering, fire safety engineering or related equivalent education.
- Experience in computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
- Your education must correspond to a five-year Norwegian degree program, where 120 credits are obtained at master’s level.
- You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and an average grade from the master’s degree program, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared with NTNU’s grading scale. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic basis. If you have a weaker grade background, you may be assessed if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education.
- Master’s students can apply.
- You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty’s doctoral program.
- Good written and oral English language skills.
The appointment is to be made in accordance with Regulations concerning the degrees of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) and Philosodophiae Doctor (PhD) in artistic research national guidelines for appointment as PhD, post doctor and research assistant
Preferred selection criteria
- Experience from work fire safety engineering.
- Experience from work on combustion and other work directly relevant for the PhD project.
- Experience in implementing/modifying sub-models in CFD code.
- Some experience with laboratory or experimental activities.
- Good written and oral Norwegian/Scandinavian language skills .
Personal characteristics
The candidate should:
- Be positive and motivated.
- Have good communication skills, regarding both scientific results and in project collaboration.
- Be able to work independently as well as in team.
- Focused, hardworking and systematic.
- Creative, good at finding solutions.
Emphasis will be placed on personal and interpersonal qualities.
We offer
- exciting and stimulating tasks in a strong international academic environment
- an open and inclusive work environment with dedicated colleagues
- favourable terms in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund
- employee benefits
Salary and conditions
As a PhD candidate (code 1017) you are normally paid from gross NOK 532 200 per annum before tax, depending on qualifications and seniority. From the salary, 2% is deducted as a contribution to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.
The period of employment is 3 years.
Appointment to a PhD position requires that you are admitted to the PhD programme in Engineering, https://www.ntnu.edu/studies/phiv within three months of employment, and that you participate in an organized PhD programme during the employment period.
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The engagement is to be made in accordance with the regulations in force concerning State Employees and Civil Servants, and the acts relating to Control of the Export of Strategic Goods, Services and Technology. Candidates who by assessment of the application and attachment are seen to conflict with the criteria in the latter law will be prohibited from recruitment to NTNU. After the appointment you must assume that there may be changes in the area of work.
The position is subject to external funding.
It is a prerequisite you can be present at and accessible to the institution daily.
About the application
The application and supporting documentation to be used as the basis for the assessment must be in English or Norwegian.
Publications and other scientific work must be attached to the application. Please note that your application will be considered based solely on information submitted by the application deadline. You must therefore ensure that your application clearly demonstrates how your skills and experience fulfil the criteria specified above.
The application must include:
- CV and certificates
- Transcripts and diplomas for bachelor’s and master’s degrees. If you have not completed the master’s degree, you must submit a confirmation that the master’s thesis has been submitted.
- A copy of the master’s thesis. If you recently have submitted your master’s thesis, you can attach a draft of the thesis. Documentation of a completed master’s degree must be presented before taking up the position.
- A description (1-2 pages) of ‘Ideas for research approach’ including preferred focus areas and suggested methods.
- A description (1 – 2 pages) of your experience with CFD, including examples of cases and type/name of code.
- Name and contact information of three referees.
- If you have publications or other relevant research work.
If all, or parts, of your education has been taken abroad, we also ask you to attach documentation of the scope and quality of your entire education, both bachelor’s and master’s education, in addition to other higher education. Description of the documentation required can be found here. If you already have a statement from Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, please attach this as well.
We will take joint work into account. If it is difficult to identify your efforts in the joint work, you must enclose a short description of your participation.
In the evaluation of which candidate is best qualified, emphasis will be placed on education, experience and personal and interpersonal qualities. Motivation, ambitions, and potential will also count in the assessment of the candidates.
NTNU is committed to following evaluation criteria for research quality according to The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – DORA.
General information
NTNU believes that inclusion and diversity is our strength. We want to recruit people with different competencies, educational backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives to contribute to solving our social responsibilities within education and research. We will facilitate for our employees’ needs.
NTNU is working actively to increase the number of women employed in scientific positions and has a number of resources to promote equality.
Department of Energy and Process Engineering has established EPT Women in Science. The group is focused on supporting female PhD Candidates, Postdoctoral Fellows, Research Assistants and permanent academic employees within the Department. This support aims to help develop the careers of female PhD Candidates, Postdocs and Research Assistants, and is also made visible to our student body to encourage them to consider an academic path. As part of the EPT Women in Science initiative we are building an international network, inviting prominent female academics within and beyond the field of Engineering to speak at our events.
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The city of Trondheim is a modern European city with a rich cultural scene. Trondheim is the innovation capital of Norway with a population of 200,000. The Norwegian welfare state, including healthcare, schools, kindergartens and overall equality, is probably the best of its kind in the world. Professional subsidized day-care for children is easily available. Furthermore, Trondheim offers great opportunities for education (including international schools) and possibilities to enjoy nature, culture and family life and has low crime rates and clean air quality.
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As an employee at NTNU, you must at all times adhere to the changes that the development in the subject entails and the organizational changes that are adopted.
A public list of applicants with name, age, job title and municipality of residence is prepared after the application deadline. If you want to reserve yourself from entry on the public applicant list, this must be justified. Assessment will be made in accordance with current legislation. You will be notified if the reservation is not accepted.
If you have any questions about the position, please contact Professor Ivar S. Ertesvåg, email: Ivar.S.Ertesvag@ntnu.no. If you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Ingrid Wiggen, e-mail: ingrid.wiggen@ntnu.no.
If you think this looks interesting and in line with your qualifications, please submit your application electronically via jobbnorge.no with your CV, diplomas and certificates attached. Applications submitted elsewhere will not be considered. Upon request, you must be able to obtain certified copies of your documentation.
Application deadline: 04.10.24
Dr Natalia Flores-Quiroz is a researcher with experience in fire safety engineering. She worked for five years as a fire safety engineer in the mining industry before joining academia. She holds a MSc in fire safety from Ghent University, and her PhD focused on Fire investigations in Informal Settlements. Currently she is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, where her main research areas are reconstruction of incidents in low-income settlements (i.e., informal settlements, refugee camps) and wildland urban interface (WUI) fires.
Bronwyn Forrest is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Waterloo, conducting multi-disciplinary research investigating human physiological response to fire exposure. Bronwyn graduated in 2017 with a BSc. Honours Kinesiology and in 2020 with a MASc. Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering (Heat Release Rate in Ventilation-Limited Furniture Fires) before merging her two degrees in her PhD research. As a senior graduate student in the Fire Research Group, Bronwyn spear-heads large-scale fire experiments, mentors junior graduate and undergraduate students, and has recently set-up a new ‘human exposure lab’ at the Fire Research Facility where she leads new research in that area. Since her induction into the world of fire science, Bronwyn has grown more and more passionate about the multi-faceted nature of emerging fire safety challenges. Through innovative research, she hopes to make meaningful contributions that help shape changes to fire safety over the course of her career.
Dr. (HDR) Eric Guillaume has worked in fire sciences since 1998. He formerly led the fire behaviour department of SNCF (French Railway), then changed company in 2005 to join LNE (The French National Laboratory for Testing and Metrology) as head of Fire safety studies department, and later as head of research for whole testing activities of LNE. Nowadays (since 2015), he works for Efectis France, first as Technical Director and more recently as General Manager of the company, leading one of the most important fire testing and fire safety engineering companies in Europe (With approx. 180 people and 28 M€ turnover)
Dr. Albert Simeoni is Professor and the Department Head of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the WPI site director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC), an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. Dr. Simeoni has served IAFSS by being chair or co-chair of the Wildland Fire track (2014, 2020 and 2023), Co-chair of the Awards Committee for the Best Thesis Awards (2023), Associate-Editor of Fire Safety Journal (2010-2015), member of the Editorial Board of Fire Safety Journal (since 2016), and Contributing Editor of Fire Safety Science News (since 2011).
Brian J. Meacham, PhD, PE (CT&MA), EUR ING, CEng (UK), FIFireE, FSFPE, is the Managing Principal of Meacham Associates. He develops risk-informed performance-based solutions to complex building and infrastructure challenges, provides peer-review services, and undertakes building and fire regulatory system studies. He also conducts research in these areas as well as in sustainable and fire resilient built environments and fire safety technologies. Brian has authored more than 300 publications, given more than 300 presentations and has been awarded more than $4M in research funding. His prior positions include Associate Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Principal at Arup, Technical Director and Research Director at SFPE, and fire safety engineer in Europe and the USA. Brian is Chair of the ICC Performance Code Committee, Chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Risk Assessment Methods, Immediate Past Chair of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS), a Past President of the SFPE, and a past Chair of the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC). He is a licensed Professional Engineer in CT and MA, a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), a registered European Engineer (EUR ING), a Fellow of the SFPE, and a Fulbright Global Scholar.
Kazunori Harada is a professor of architecture & architectural engineering at Kyoto University, Japan. He has a career in fire research for over 35 years. He has authored 14 IAFSS symposium papers. His expertise covers the fire resistance of construction materials, smoke movement and control, burning of combustibles in open and compartment, performance-based code & design of buildings and so on. He serves as a vice president of AOAFST, Asia-Oceania Association of Fire Science and Technology. He also serves as the Convenor of ISO/TC92/SC4 WG9, calculation methods for fire safety engineering (FSE), which develops calculation standards concerning FSE.
Enrico Ronchi is an Associate Professor at Lund University, Sweden. His research and education activities are focused on evacuation and human behaviour in case of building fires and wildfires. His work has been published in over 150 publications (including >90 peer-reviewed journal papers). He is currently Associate Editor for the journals Fire Technology and Safety Science and member of the editorial board of the Fire Safety Journal.
Jennifer Wen is currently Professor of Energy Resilience in the School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey as Professor. Previously, Jennifer held positions at Computational Dynamics Limited (founding vendor of STAR-CCM), British Gas plc, South Bank University, Kingston University London, and University of Warwick. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Vice-Chair for Research for the International Association for Fire Safety Science. Jennifer is also a member and sub-task leader of the European Safety Panel on Hydrogen Safety (EHSP) established by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) of the European Commission. She is an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute.
Dr Wojciech Węgrzyński is with ITB, that is the Polish Building Research Institute in Warsaw. He currently holds the position of the Deputy Head of Fire Research Department and the Professor of the Institute, and a Director at SFPE Europe. He is the Author of 40 peer-reviewed papers published in all of the primary FSE journals. His main area of interest is the fundamentals of compartment fire dynamics and standardized fire testing, and also: use of computational fluid dynamics in fire, wind and fire interaction and evaluation of the effects of the spread of smoke in buildings. His research is focused on the impact of the architectural context of the building on the smoke control performance, as well as finding solutions to make the smoke exhaust systems cheaper and more efficient. Member of the Sub-committee for Research of the IAFSS. 2018 NFPA Harry C. Bigglestone Award Recipient; 2019 Jack Watts Award Recipient; 2020 SFPE 5 Under 35 Award Recipient. Member of Editorial Board of ‘Fire Technology. Hosts a fire podcast at 
Dr. Shuna Ni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Ph.D. degree at Texas A&M University in 2018 and her Master’s degree at Tongji University in 2013. Dr. Ni’s research focuses on fire forensics, structural fire engineering, WUI fire resilience, fire safety of tall mass-timber buildings and fire-related multiple hazards. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Fire Protection Research Foundation, University Transportation Centers under the Department of Transportation, Grand Challenges Grants Program at the University of Maryland and industrial partners.
Brian Lattimer, Ph.D. is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech where he performs experimental and computational research on fire safety and disaster resilience. He has nearly 30 years of experience in fire related research. His research areas include material behavior in fires, fire dynamics, suppression agents, heat transfer from fires to surfaces, structural response during fire, and firefighting technology.
Yu Wang is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He got joint Ph.D. from USTC and the City University of Hong Kong in 2016 and had working experience at the University of Edinburgh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and National University of Singapore before returning to China in 2020. His primary research areas are high-rise building fire and large outdoor fire. Yu has published over 50 SCI journal papers, and is currently an Associate Editor in Fire Technology and Editorial Board Member in Fire Safety Journal. He initiated the first English fire course at USTC, Introduction of Fire Dynamics, reported by China News and People’s Daily Online (over 260,000 audiences). In recent years, he has received SFPE Global 5 Under 35 Award, Youth May Fourth Medal (Anhui Province), Young Faculty Career Award (USTCAF), and some Best Paper/Presentation/Poster/Image Awards in IAFSS or AOSFST.
ROGAUME Thomas is an Professor at the University of Poitiers – Pprime Institute (UPR3346 CNRS), FRANCE.
Prof. Yuji Nakamura is Full Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), appointed as Affiliate Full Professor in Center for Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science (since 2014). He currently serves the Head of Energy Conversion Laboratory and appointed as Department Chair since 2024. Prof. Nakamura has made professional service in Fire Science Community served as Management Committee of IAFSS during 2021-2023, worked as Co-chair of LOC in the most recent IAFSS symposium at Tsukuba, acting Associate Editor of Fire Technology since 2014 and board member of Fire Safety Journal since 2017.
Dr Felix Wiesner is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and study the role of engineered timber in fire safety. I work in the Faculty of Forestry as part of the Wood Science department. My research focus has mostly been experimental, considering fire dynamics in timber compartments and the structural fire capacity of engineered timber products. In addition, I am interested in the performance of timber in exterior building or infrastructure setting. This closely interfaces with wildfire considerations for the wildland urban interface (WUI), especially when it comes to smouldering.
Arnaud Trouvé is Professor and Chair in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. He joined the Faculty in 2001 with a Ph.D. (1989) and Engineering Degree (1985) from École Centrale of Paris, France, and with previous experience as a combustion research engineer. Professor Trouvé’s research interests include fire modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); application of data assimilation to fire and combustion; and physical modeling of combustion- and fire-related phenomena, including compartment fires, wildland fires and explosions. Professor Trouvé is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute and the recipient of the 2017 FORUM Sjölin Award. He has served on the editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion and Flame, and Fire Technology, and is currently on the editorial boards of Combustion Theory and Modelling and the Fire Safety Journal. Professor Trouvé is also a past Chair of the US Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute (ESSCI) and a past Member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is a co-Chair of a recent initiative endorsed by IAFSS and called the “IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena” (the MaCFP Working Group) and the past Chair of a new network of leading higher-education institutions and research laboratories in fire safety engineering called the International Fire Safety Consortium (IFSC).
Dr Xinyan Huang is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Fire Safety Engineering. He received his PhD from Imperial College London, MSc from UC San Diego, and BEng from Southeast University, and was a Postdoc at UC Berkeley. Dr Huang is a Combustion Scientist and a Fire Safety Engineer who has co-authored over 200 journal papers. He is an Associate Editor of Fire Technology and International Journal of Wildland Fire, an editorial member of J. Building Engineering, Fire Safety J. and Fire and Materials, a Chartered Building Services and Fire Engineer, a committee member for HK Fire Safety Code, and a Fire Expert for HK High Court. He receives the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, Bernard Lewis Fellowship and Sugden Best Paper Award from Combustion Institute, “5 under 35” and Bono Award from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).