Sweden : Ph.D. student position in High Voltage Engineering

The Department of Materials and Manufacturing Technology consists of six research groups and has a total staff of around 60 persons. The research activities span from basic research on nanostructural materials to product- and process related issues within materials and manufacturing technology.




The research is carried out in close collaboration with national and international industries and universities. Our graduate as well as undergraduate education is organized in a wide range of courses, we are involved in three masters’ programmes and three graduate schools.



Job description

Today the modern society is strongly dependent upon reliable electric power supply. Trustworthy components of the power systems are here of primary importance and recent developments of power electronic technology has enabled their controllability to a level that was not possible just a few years ago. However, the rapid evolution towards higher switching frequencies and higher voltages has led to appearance of increased and different stresses on the electrical insulation, which, in some cases, have resulted in failures. The thermal and electrical phenomena that occur under these stresses significantly reduce the lifetime of the insulating materials and thereby also the lifetime of the components. It has also been observed that the behaviour of the insulation systems is not the same at higher frequencies as compared to the normal power frequency.







The aim of this research project is to further develop a new measuring technique for material characterisation, so called arbitrary waveform dielectric spectroscopy, towards relevant industrial applications. The main advantage of this technique is that high precision dielectric measurements can be made with diverse external voltage sources, including operating and disturbance voltage signals, instead of using precision sources. The harmonic content in the voltage signal is then utilised in combination with high accuracy current measurements. The additional advantage of the technique is that it can possibly be applied for on-line measurements.



The work is partly experimental, but also includes signal processing tasks and theoretical studies for extracting relevant information from measured data. You will learn more about discharge physics to understand the physical mechanisms that control electrical discharges in insulation exposed to fast transients as well as about material long term behaviour and ageing mechanisms while exposed to electrical discharges. In addition to the research activities you will also follow courses within the Graduate School of High Voltage Engineering (GSHVE).



Required qualifications

You must have recently received a MSc (or equivalent) degree in electrical engineering, engineering physics or materials science. You should be innovative, analytical and interested in materials and measuring techniques. You will be a part of the High Voltage Engineering Group, which research focuses mostly on areas related to modern high voltage insulation systems. The project is to be carried out and supervised in cooperation with ABB Corporate Research and is financed by Elforsk’s Elektra programme. Teaching duties at maximum 20% of full time be included as a part of the work assignments.





Application procedure

The application shall be written in English and include the following items:



An application of a maximum of one A4 page containing your specific qualifications for the position

Attested copies of education certificates, including grade reports and other documents

Curriculum Vitae

Letters of recommendation and name of reference persons (optional)

The application shall be sent electronically as pdf or zipped documents. Please use the button at the foot of the page to reach the application form.



If any material is not available electronically or cannot be transferred to pdf format, the material can be sent as a hard copy to Registrar. The applicants name and the reference number (2010/75) must be written on the first page of the application.



Address:

Registrar

Chalmers University of Technology

SE-412 96 Göteborg

Sweden



Further information

Adjunct professor Tord Bengtsson, ABB Corporate Research, +46 21 323169

tord.bengtsson@se.abb.com





Senior lecturer Jörgen Blennow, +46 31 772 1625,

jorgen.blennow@chalmers.se



Professor Stanislaw Gubanski, +46 31 772 1616,

stanislaw.gubanski@chalmers.se



Union representatives

SACO: Jan Lindér

ST: Marie Wenander

SEKO: Johan Persson

All reachable via Chalmers exchange: +46 31 772 10 00