Duration: Fixed Term for three years

The Institute of Petroleum Engineering (IPE) at Heriot-Watt University is a postgraduate institute with a number of popular and industry-standard Masters courses, as well as a strong population of over 100 PhD students and post-doctoral researchers. IPE is recognised internationally as a leading centre of excellence in petroleum engineering and petroleum geosciences teaching, training and research with strong links to industry worldwide.

An opportunity has arisen within the Carbonate Reservoir Group at IPE to conduct research in order to support the development of a novel reservoir modelling environment as part of the industry-funded Rapid Reservoir Modelling Project, an international research collaboration between the University of Calgary, Imperial College London, Federal University of Pernambuco, and Heriot-Watt University.

IPE is inviting applications for an outstanding and motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate for a three-year period to carry out and support the Rapid Reservoir Modelling project. The role will involve the following duties:

• Develop efficient numerical algorithms to generate corner point grids and tetrahedral finite element grids “on the fly” from surface-based reservoir models
• Develop efficient numerical algorithms to simulate pressure, temperature, and stress distributions in a petroleum reservoir
• Develop efficient numerical algorithms to compute connected rock volumes between wells, using unstructured finite element and finite volume methods
• Implement the algorithms in an open source, software environment for Rapid Reservoir Modelling
• Visit the academic project partners to liaise on the optimisation of the development of the software environment
• Document the algorithms through a joint Rapid Reservoir Modelling Wiki
• Demonstrate the algorithms using selected case studies

The Institute is looking to employ an individual with at least three years’ experience in developing and implementing numerical algorithms for CFD and/or porous media flow problems, experience in using unstructured grids in numerical simulation, and experience in developing open source software packages. Mobility and the willingness to travel will be essential in order to liaise with the project partners in Brazil, Canada and London.

Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts at Heriot-Watt.