PhD in Civil Engineering – Advanced Simulation Capabilities for Reinforced Tubular Structures Under Complex Loading Conditions

Start date: 01 October 2025 or earlier

A fully funded PhD Studentship is available at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow in collaboration with Freudenberg from 1st October 2025 (or earlier).  

Introduction and Motivation: 

Freudenberg is a global technology group whose goal is to strengthen its customers and society in the long term through forward-looking innovations. Together with partners and customers, having a deep focus on science and technology, the eleven business groups within Freudenberg aspire to develop cutting-edge products, state-of-the-art solutions, and services for some 40 market segments and thousands of applications, ranging from seals, batteries, fuel cells, vibration control components, technical textiles, filters, cleaning technologies and products, speciality chemicals, and medical products.  

Commitment to excellence, reliability, and proactive, responsible action have been part of the company’s core values as practised for more than 170 years. Today, Freudenberg Group employs more than 51,000 employees and generates sales of EUR 11.75 billion. At the end of the year 2022, the number of companies in Freudenberg totalled 457, spread across 56 countries.  

Freudenberg Medical, as one business group of Freudenberg, is a leading global manufacturer of innovative medical device components and solutions. It specializes in the development and production of high-precision medical components, including catheter tubes for minimally invasive surgical applications. The company’s advanced manufacturing processes enable the production of complex tubular structures with precise reinforcement patterns and small dimensional tolerances, ensuring optimal mechanical properties such as flexibility, kink resistance, and torque transmission. These characteristics are crucial for minimally invasive surgical procedures where speed, control, reliability and least trauma requirements are paramount. 

This research project aims to enhance Freudenberg’s finite element analysis capabilities using the open-source software MoFEM (http://mofem.eng.gla.ac.uk) to accurately predict the mechanical behaviour of reinforced tubes, with particular emphasis on large deformation responses, including contact and buckling phenomena. The project addresses critical challenges in engineering design and analysis by developing robust numerical methods that capture both geometric and material nonlinearities while accounting for manufacturing imperfections. 

Project Objectives: 

1. Implementation of advanced nonlinear finite element formulations capable of handling large deformations in reinforced tubular structures 
2. Development of efficient contact algorithms to model interactions between different elements of the tube structure 
3. Integration of buckling analysis methods to estimate instability points  
4. Creation of a systematic approach to incorporate manufacturing tolerances and imperfections into the simulation framework 
5. Implementation of uncertainty quantification methods to assess the impact of geometric variations on structural performance 

Industry Partner Contribution: 

Freudenberg will play a vital role in this research project by providing essential industrial expertise and validation capabilities. The company will generate designs and manufacture various reinforced tube geometries according to specific test matrices, enabling validation of the developed simulation tools. The in-house testing facilities will be utilized to conduct experimental studies, generating valuable data for code validation and calibration. The company’s engineering team will provide feedback on the practical applicability of the developed methods and contribute industry-specific knowledge regarding manufacturing constraints and typical imperfection patterns. Additionally, consulting services will be offered throughout the project, ensuring that the research outcomes align with industrial needs and standards. This will ensure that the developed tools are not only academically rigorous but also practically applicable in real-world engineering scenarios. 

How to Apply: Please refer to the following website for details on how to apply: https://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/infrastructureenvironment/