Two fully funded Industrial PhD Studentships are available at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Freudenberg Group from 1st October 2025 (or earlier).
Freudenberg is a global technology group whose goal is to strengthen its customers and society in the long term through forward-looking innovations. Together with partners and customers, having a deep focus on science and technology, the eleven business groups within Freudenberg aspire to develop cutting-edge products, state-of-the-art solutions, and services for some 40 market segments and thousands of applications, ranging from seals, batteries, fuel cells, vibration control components, technical textiles, filters, cleaning technologies and products, speciality chemicals, and medical products.
Commitment to excellence, reliability, and proactive, responsible action have been part of the company's core values as practised for more than 170 years. Today, Freudenberg Group employs more than 51,000 employees and generates sales of EUR 11.75 billion. At the end of the year 2022, the number of companies in Freudenberg totalled 457, spread across 56 countries.
Two fully funded industrial PhD projects are proposed within the collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Freudenberg. Both projects will utilise MoFEM (http://mofem.eng.gla.ac.uk) - an open-source parallel finite element library developed at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow.
Project 1: Advanced Simulation Capabilities for Reinforced Tubular Structures Under Complex Loading Conditions
Freudenberg Medical, as one business group of Freudenberg, is a leading global manufacturer of innovative medical device components and solutions. It specializes in the development and production of high-precision medical components, including catheter tubes for minimally invasive surgical applications. The company's advanced manufacturing processes enable the production of complex tubular structures with precise reinforcement patterns and small dimensional tolerances, ensuring optimal mechanical properties such as flexibility, kink resistance, and torque transmission. These characteristics are crucial for minimally invasive surgical procedures where speed, control, reliability and least trauma requirements are paramount.
This research project aims to enhance Freudenberg's finite element analysis capabilities using the open-source software MoFEM to accurately predict the mechanical behaviour of reinforced tubes, with particular emphasis on large deformation responses, including contact and buckling phenomena. The project addresses critical challenges in engineering design and analysis by developing robust numerical methods that capture both geometric and material nonlinearities while accounting for manufacturing imperfections.
Project Objectives:
* Implementation of advanced nonlinear finite element formulations capable of handling large deformations in reinforced tubular structures
* Development of efficient contact algorithms to model interactions between different elements of the tube structure
* Integration of buckling analysis methods to estimate instability points
* Creation of a systematic approach to incorporate manufacturing tolerances and imperfections into the simulation framework
* Implementation of uncertainty quantification methods to assess the impact of geometric variations on structural performance
Project 2: GPU-accelerated simulation capabilities for lifetime estimation of large connector seals
Freudenberg Flow Technologies, as one business group of Freudenberg, provides sealing solutions for nearly all kinds of rotating equipment with a comprehensive portfolio of mechanical seals, carbon floating ring seals, magnetic couplings, seal supply systems and special products, especially for pumps, compressors, agitators and special machines.
This research project aims to enhance the finite element analysis (FEA) capabilities of Freudenberg by developing graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated contact and material nonlinearity/large deformation algorithms in the open-source software MoFEM for expediting the FE simulations. The specific focus will be on the simulation for lifetime estimation of large connector seals produced by Freudenberg Flow Technologies, which currently requires over 10 hours of simulations in commercial FEA software that often fails to converge at a certain point in the analysis. Moreover, the accuracy of the local stress distribution is low despite using a significant number of (low order) finite elements. This project will tackle both the accuracy and the computational time problems. Using higher-order FE approaches for the elastoplastic contact problem will significantly improve the accuracy of the lifetime predictions. Moreover, advanced algorithms exploiting acceleration by modern GPUs will speed up these challenging analyses.
Project Objectives:
* Implementation of higher order mixed FE formulations capable of handling large deformation elastoplastic contact in large connector seals.
* Development of GPU-accelerated and highly scalable algorithms based on block solvers to speed up simulations.
* Implementation of robust and efficient error indicators highlighting regions of the mesh requiring refinement.
* Implementation of mesh and approximation order adaptive automatic refinement algorithms (hp-refinement).
Industry Partner Contribution:
Freudenberg will play a vital role in both research projects by providing essential industrial expertise and validation capabilities. In-house testing facilities will be utilized to conduct experimental studies, generating valuable data for code validation and calibration. The company's engineering team will provide feedback on the practical applicability of the developed methods and contribute industry-specific knowledge regarding manufacturing constraints and typical imperfection patterns. Additionally, consulting services will be offered throughout the projects, ensuring that the research outcomes align with industrial needs and standards. This will ensure that the developed tools are not only academically rigorous but also practically applicable in real-world engineering scenarios.
Funding Notes:
Both studentships are fully funded for 3.5 years and cover tuition fees and an annual stipend. The stipend rate for the 2025/26 academic year is set to £20,780 per annum, paid monthly, and is expected to rise in
line with the Research Council stipend level in subsequent years. The funding also covers necessary IT equipment and attendance of national and international conferences, courses and workshops.
Eligibility:
Candidates must hold a First or an Upper Second Class (2.1) honours degree in Engineering or relevant science discipline, or an equivalent. Candidates will also need to demonstrate knowledge of solid mechanics, numerical methods and computer programming.
How to Apply: Please refer to the following website for details on how to apply: https://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/infrastructureenvironment/
Supervisory team: Dr Andrei Shvarts, Prof Lukasz Kaczmarczyk, Prof Chris Pearce
Application Deadline: 28th February 2025.
Project Start Date: 1st October 2025 (or earlier).