What are the responsibilities and job description for the Aerothermal Engineer position at Whisper Aero?
About the Role
Whisper Aero is seeking a diligent, detail-oriented and hardworking Aero-thermal Engineer familiar with different fidelity heat transfer codes (from network models to conjugate heat transfer CFD codes) to assist with the design of thermal analysis in advanced electric propulsion systems. This role will be focused on developing cooling schemes and carrying out detailed thermal analysis for integrated motor/propulsor problems. It will involve some working knowledge of heat sources in electric motors and power electronics associated with electric propulsors. They will drive key thermodynamic, aero performance, and aero-thermo-structural design decisions and regularly work closely with our Flight Sciences Lead, Flight Sciences team, Chief Engineer, and Technical Project Leads. In this role, you will work with the team to identify thermal constraints for future propulsors, manage cooling schemes for propulsors in different thrust classes, develop thermal codes, provide pre-test predictions, and code validation.
What You’ll Do
- Participate in and present during reviews, provide feedback to the design, flight sciences teams, and technical project managers.
- Use thermodynamic network analysis, back-of-envelope calculations to evaluate electric motor heating during select mission profile points.
- Design cooling schemes and assess scalability related to motors with different power requirements.
- Perform design optimization trades involving aerodynamic performance, heat transfer, and weight.
- Carry out high-fidelity CFD and conjugate heat transfer simulations.
- Provide testing support for model validation, support design projects, and help with writing proposals.
- Participate in design review meetings.
- Provide support to customers for issues that arise in product integration
- Write technical reports that are accurate and comprehensive to be peer-reviewed by other team members.
Basic Qualifications
- US Citizenship / Green Card Status
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, or Computational Sciences technical discipline with typically a minimum of 4 years of related experience; or a graduate degree Masters degree in similar disciplines with a minimum of 2 years of related experience; or PhD in similar disciplines.
- Familiarity with heat transfer codes and frameworks.
- CFD experience with commercial codes like Ansys, StarCCM
- Experience with a 3D CAD package such as Solidworks, NX, CATIA V5, or Fusion 360
- Expertise in Python programming, Matlab, and Julia preferred.
Bonus Qualifications
- Experience with liquid cooling and two-phase applications
- Exposure to electric motors/power electronics, especially as related to heat sources
- Experience with electric machines and motors, hybrid electric powertrains
- Experience with Multidisciplinary Design Optimization methods and/or Machine Learning Surrogate Models, Digital Twins
- Familiarity with data management, revision, and version control: Git
