Data science for heterogeneous materials
In order to predict the functional properties of heterogeneous materials through numerical simulation, reliable data on the spatial arrangement and properties of the constitutive phases is needed. A variety of experimental tools is commonly used at the laboratory to characterize spatially the physical and chemical properties of materials, generating "hyperspectral" datasets. A path to progress towards an improved undestanding of phenomena is the combination of the various imaging techniques using the methods of data science. The objectives of this post-doc is to enrich material knowledge by developping tools to discover correlations in the datasets (for exemple between chemical composition and mechanical behavior), and to increase reliability and confidence in this data by combining techniques and physical constraints. These tools will be applied to datasets of interest regarding cementitious materials and corrosion product layers from archaeological artifacts.
Simulation of supercritical helium flows in the cooling circuits of tokamaks
Future fusion reactors such as tokamaks (ITER, DEMO) will have to demonstrate the safety of their systems, validated by thermal hydraulic codes. To meet this requirement, the CATHARE code has been chosen as scientific computing tool. The work will consist in adapting the CATHARE code to helium at low temperatures and then to benchmark it with other thermal hydraulic codes used by the DRF (Direction de la Recherche Fondamentale), as well as with experimental data available at CEA Grenoble.
The study will be threefold. The first phase will be dedicated to a literature survey on the thermal hydraulics of helium, featured by closing equations for monophasic helium (friction and heat transfer coefficients). In a second step, the engineer will implement these laws in the code and perform some validations tests. The last part will focus a benchmark based on three applications: the study of a cryo-pump, the study of a supercritical helium discharge and the study of a superconducting cable.
Hardening energy efficient security features for the IoT in FDSOI 28nm technology
The security of the IoT connected objects must be energy efficient. But most of the work
around hardening by design show an additional cost, a multiplying factor of 2 to 5, on the
surface, performance, power and energy, which does not meet the constraints of the IoT.
Last 5 years research efforts on hardening have been guided by reducing silicon area or
power, which do not always imply a decrease in energy, predominant criterion in autonomous
connected objects. The postdoc topic addresses the hardening and energy consumption
optimization of the implementation of security functions (attack detection sensors,
cryptographic accelerator, random number generator, etc.) in 28nm FDSOI technology.
From the selection of existing security bricks, unhardened in FPGA technology, the postdoc
will explore hardening solutions at each step of the design flow in order to propose and
to validate, into a silicon demonstrator, the most energy efficient countermeasures that
guarantee a targeted security level.
To achieve those goals, the postdoc can rely on existing methodologies of design and of
security evaluation thanks to test benches and attack tools.
Numerical quality analysis of simulation codes with CADNA, Verificarlo and Verrou
Numerical codes rely on floating-point arithmetic to represent real numbers and the operations applied to them. However, in general, real numbers cannot be exactly represented by floating-point numbers. The finite precision of the floating-point arithmetic may lead to round-off errors that may accumulate. With the increasing computational power, the algorithm complexification and the coupling of numerical codes, it is crucial to quantify the numerical robustness of an application or an algorithm.
CADNA [1], Verificarlo [2] and Verrou [3] are dedicated tools that allow estimating the round-off errors propagation and measuring the numerical accuracy of the obtained results. The objective of this work is to use these three tools on GYSELA [4, 5], a simulation code used to characterize the plasma dynamics in Tokamak, and PATMOS [6], a mini-app representative of a Monte Carlo neutron transport code. This analysis will be aimed at assessing the numerical robustness of these two applications or some of their algorithms. In addition to the analysis of the numerical quality, these tools will also be used to see whether it is possible to lower the precision (simple or even half precision instead of double) of some algorithms, thus improving the memory footprint and/or performances (vectorization, communications). Beyond the lessons learnt on the two analyzed codes, a second objective will be the elaboration of a methodology that could be more generic and be applied more broadly to other codes.
Development of multiphysics tools dedicated to the modeling of FSR and associated studies.
The sodium group of DM2S (department of CEA Saclay) develops numerical coupling tools in order to realize accidental case studies (fast transient). The physical domains concerned are neutronics, thermo-hydraulics and mechanics. The subject of this post-doc deals within this framework.
The aim is to carry out several studies: the integration of a coupling within the CORPUS platform, to carry out studies in order to test (and introduce) in the coupling the impact of the deformation of the assemblies by the Temperature on the flow of liquid sodium, the use of the neutronic cross sections generated by the code APOLLO3, the study of other accidental cases, and extend the modeling to the subchannel and pin scales.
Frequency tunable elastic plate wave resonators and filters
The increasing number of frequency bands having to be dealt with in mobile phone systems require a huge number of band pass filters in such systems. In this context, the capability to provide frequency tunable resonators and filters is seen as a key enabling element in future wireless transmission systems.
CEA-LETI has been working for more than 10 years on the development of resonators and filters exploiting the propagation of guided elastic waves in piezoelectric thin films. It has also proposed several concepts for frequency agile resonators and filters.
The purpose of this post-doc will be to further develop these ideas and to apply them to the design of demonstrators matching realistic specifications. In collaboration with the other member of the project team, more focused on fabrication in clean rooms, the candidate will propose innovative structures demonstrating frequency tuning of reconfigurability, and will take in charge their electrical characterization.
Development of a computational framework dedicated to model order reduction by certified reduced basis method.
Many engineering fields require to solve numerically partial differential equations (PDE) modeling physical phenomenon.
When we focus on a mathematical model that describes the physical behavior of a system based on one or more parametrized PDEs (geometrical or physical parameters), it may be desirable to rapidly and reliably evaluate the output of the model (quantity of interest)
for different parameter values.
The real-time context, needed to perform command-control, and contexts asking many evaluations of model outputs (typically for optimization methods or uncertainty and sensitivity analysis) lend themselves perfectly.
The certified reduced basis method is an intrusive reduction method beacause, unkike non-intrusive methods, the reduction is based on the projection of operators associated to physical model PDEs.
This method allow to obtain rapidly, for a given set of parameter values, an approximation of the evaluation of the model output.
One of the strengths of the method is the "certified" aspect to estimate the approximation error of the model output evaluation.
The goal of the post-doctorate is to develop a computational framework for the certified reduced basis method. This framework should be based on the TRUST platform (https://sourceforge.net/projects/trust-platform/) developed at CEA and will be generic enough to be used to deal with different types of problems (linear or not, stationary or not, coercive or not...)
The framework will be used in the case of a two-fluid mixing model.
Cluster dynamic simulations of materials under irradiation
Alloys used in nuclear applications are subjected to neutron irradiation, which introduces large amounts of vacancy and interstitial defects. Over time, these defects migrate, recombine and agglomerate with minor alloying elements to form small clusters. This affects the mechanical properties of ferritic steels and weakens them. In this context, the microstuctural evolution is to be simulated using the rate equation cluster dynamic method. However, this approach becomes ineffecient when several minor alloying elements need being taken into account. The difficulty comes from the huge number of cluster variables to describe. The project aims at optimizing the code efficiency on a distributed parallel architecture by implementing parallelized vector and matrix functions from SUNDIALS library. This library is used to integrate the ordinary differential equation describing the reactions between clusters. Another aspect of the work is more theoretical and involves reformulating the non-linear root-finding problem by taking advantage of the reversibility of most chemical reactions. This property should facilitates the implementation of direct and gradients iterative sparse solvers for symmetric definite positive matrices, such as the multi-frontal Cholesky factorization and the conjugate gradient methods, respectively. One avenue of research will consists of combining direct and iterative solvers, using the former as a preconditioner of the latter.
Ultra Low Power RF Communication Circuit and System Design for Wake-Up Radio
Today, there is a strong demand in developing new autonomous Wake-Up radio systems with tunable performances and independent clocking system. The objectives of the proposed contract it to exploit the capacity of CMOS FD-SOI technologies to develop such devices, improving power consumption and RF performance above the state of the art, thanks to the natural low parasitic and tuning capacity through back biasing of the FD-SOI . A particular attention will be paid to the development of a new power efficient, fast settling, frequency synthesis system.
The chosen candidate will be involved both in RF system and circuit design, with the support of the experienced RF System & Design team.