Thermal Engineer - Cells

Your role and your team:

We are looking for an outstanding Thermal Engineer to join our innovative team that will shape the future of urban e-mobility. This position will contribute, as part of an integrated cross-functional team, to the battery cell sourcing, design, system integration, and the delivery of the Lilium Jet.

As a thermal analysis expert in Lilium’s cell integration, manufacturing, and supply team, you will be responsible for developing the thermal aspects of cell technology and its integration into a battery and aircraft system in a fast-paced multi-disciplinary environment. You will develop thermal and coupled adjacent disciplines models using first principles, simulations, and testing. You will validate these models against actual hardware and use the models to guide the design, selection, and integration of cells. Your skills will be applied to everything from the high-level system architecture and performance scoping and detailed convective, conductive, and radiative heat transfer of battery cells to entropy change and heat generation at electrode and particle level.

Your Day to Day:       

• Evaluate cell designs from suppliers and generate summarized insights from simulation, supporting program milestones and cell supplier steering and scouting.
• Develop state of the art tools and methods to predict thermal, and degradation behaviour of batteries.
• Predict capacity loss, resistance rise, pressure change, etc. as a function of the stress, temperature, and power trajectory.
• Analyse normal and emergency thermal operation limits
• Model thermal runaway reaction kinetics to predict gas and heat generation as a crucial input to battery module and pack design
• Skilfully mix and match data driven approaches and mechanistic physics-based models
• Cover the complete spectrum from simple engineering models to complex spatially resolved multiphysics models and select goal oriented from it
• Perform uncertainty quantification incorporating cell-to-cell variations
• Collaborate with test engineers to develop test plans and procedures with proper level of instrumentation such that model input and validation data can be generated repeatable and consistent.
• Document models, assumptions, and intended usage
• Stay current on lithium-ion battery publications

Your Profile:

• or Ph.D. in an Engineering Discipline, Math, Physics, Chemistry or Materials
• Knowledge of all cell parts and their detailed functions and interaction
• Experience in stand-alone or coupled thermal and degradation analysis of battery systems
• Solid understanding and working knowledge of fundamental physics, equations and numerical methods underpinning all software used
• Extensive mathematical knowledge and experience in statistical analysis, reduced order modeling and machine learning
• Skilled Python programmer
• Demonstrated research capability to solve challenging problems
• High level of self-reliance with the ability to work in a team, as well as autonomously
• Target-oriented, driven work style with analytic problem-solving skills
• Fluent English language skills are essential

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