Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program

The Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stakeholders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

After the two year program, our trainees become technical designers with a broad technological understanding of the disciplines relevant to the above mentioned smart cities themes (architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building physics and services and ICT), who excel in their own discipline and who are able to work in multidisciplinary design teams, contribute to design issues outside their own core disciplines, integrate different technologies into new products and concepts, and who understand the commercial aspects of these innovative products and concepts.

Job description

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The program consists of two main parts running in parallel:

- Half of the program consists of post-master level education in the form of generic design projects and courses about design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills. Furthermore, it includes several technical courses about topics relevant to SB&C. This part of the program also offers ample opportunity to develop professional skills.

- The other half of the program is dedicated to an individual design project in collaboration with a company. It is the trainee's main responsibility to manage and execute the project. Each trainee is supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the designed product or process is part of the final deliverables.

The company design project related to this traineeship is described below.

Solar shading forms an integral feature of many high-performance buildings. Shading systems not only affect building energy use, but also thermal comfort, daylight utilization, and views to the outside. These aspects are highly interconnected and dynamic, leading to time-varying trade-offs and the need for appropriate automation of shading controls. Especially in the existing building stock, improvement of solar shading control can give access to a significant potential for energy savings and improved indoor comfort, that currently remains untapped.

The goal of this PDEng project is to further develop intelligent solar shading control algorithms for high-performance buildings. By using (i) modelling and simulation in combination with sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, and (ii) analysis of data gathered from demonstration projects, this project seeks to develop robust façade and control solutions that are optimized with respect to energy efficiency and satisfaction with indoor environmental quality.

The PDEng trainee will be embedded in the Building Performance group - www.tue.nl/buildingperformance. For questions about the project contact Roel Loonen.

Who can apply?

We are looking for

• an excellent and highly motivated candidate with an MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical or Environmental Engineering, or equivalent. Interest in physical processes (heat, air and moisture transfer) in the built environment, sustainable energy technologies and computational building performance simulation is essential.

• an interest in developing new sustainable technologies and applications for the built environment.

• an academic attitude in order to develop new technologies and perform applied research with an integral view on what is needed for the future built environment.

• an excellent command of the English language, both in speaking and writing.

What do we provide?

We offer a fulltime traineeship of two years. The traineeship is a formal employment at the Eindhoven University of Technology according to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (CAO-NU). Trainees receive a financial compensation according to this standard. Bruto salary: € 1828

Trainees are provided with their own work place in the building of the Department of the Built Environment. The university provides all general modern facilities belonging to first class universities; mediation in housing, excellent sports facilities, language courses, modern digital library facilities etc. For more information please visit www.tue.nl/en/.