PhD Scholarship in Automated Machine Polishing of Complex Mould Geometries

The Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has an open PhD position (3 years) on the topic of “Automated machine polishing of complex mould geometries”. 

The position is funded in the context of the project MADE React co-funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark. The PhD student will be working in the framework of the ongoing collaboration between DTU Construct, and Danish companies with interest in implementing solutions for polishing of complex geometries, with particular focus on injection moulding moulds (ok). This position offers unique opportunities with respect to high level research, training and innovation within manufacturing engineering, in an exciting combination of academic and industrial environments. The selected candidate will receive strong guidance from academic supervisors as well as from industrial experts. 

Responsibilities and qualifications

Polishing is one of the last steps of the manufacturing process chain for industrial tools and components with high surface quality requirements. Despite the trends towards increasing automation and higher productivity, the polishing of complex geometries is still normally performed manually, leading to reduced repeatability of the results. Existing machine polishing solutions are either limited to simple part geometries or are characterized by lengthy identification of suitable process parameters by trial-and-error, leading to a time consuming sub-optimal selection.

In the domain of high precision machining, tools are prematurely discarded to avoid the risk of costly non-conformities. This creates a large loss of value of strategically valuable raw materials and waste of energy related to material, cutting tools and parts production.

The PhD project will therefore focus on automating and demonstrating machine polishing processes of complex mould surfaces using compliant polishing tools by implementation of sensing solutions enabling process, tool and surface condition monitoring. The goal is to achieve automated data driven optimization (in terms of time and quality) of polishing process parameters by application of machine learning algorithms, leading to a robust, repeatable and fast polishing process. An integral part of the project will be the development of enhanced data-driven physics methods to achieve reliable prediction of material removal rate and material removal distribution.

The approach will be validated by application to industrial production at a partner company.

The position includes both theoretical and experimental work and carries project as well as academic responsibilities. The scientific work conducted must be positioned relative to current literature and published in conference and journal articles. 

You are required to have an excellent academic background and must have a strong knowledge of production engineering technologies and manufacturing systems for subtractive manufacturing. Strong knowledge of process monitoring, manufacturing metrology, and programming tools such as Matlab is highly desirable. The candidate should have good analytical skills as well as good communication skills in English.

You should have completed a two-year master's degree (120 ECTS points) in Mechanical, Production, Materials, Industrial or Robotics Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline, or a similar degree with an equivalent academic level. 

Application procedure 

To apply, please read the full job advertisement by clicking the 'Apply' button

Read more about DTU at www.dtu.dk/english

Advert information