Marie Curie PhD vacancy

Marie Curie PhD vacancy (DC7) for PhD research titled "Laser Power Bed Fusion of novel high temperature-resistant multi-metal combinations for small-scale turbomachinery"

(ref. BAP-2026-594)

Laatst aangepast: 21/09/26

This proposed PhD research will be carried out in the Additive Manufacturing (AM) team at the Department of Mechanical Engineering from KU Leuven.

KU Leuven (University of Leuven) has been a center of learning for nearly six centuries since 1425, making it one of the oldest and most renowned universities in Europe. Today, it is Belgium’s highest ranked university (QS 2025 : 60), ranked among the top 4% universities in the world and consistently ranked in the top 10 most innovative universities in Europe. The university caters to over 60,000 students from more than 140 countries. KU Leuven's three doctoral schools provide internationally oriented PhD tracks for more than 4,000 doctoral students. KU Leuven and affiliated knowledge institutes provide fertile ground for innovation and high-tech entrepreneurship in the Leuven region. This favourable climate for knowledge-driven innovation makes the Leuven region an attractive location for many high-tech companies.

KU Leuven website: https://www.kuleuven.be/english/kuleuven/ AM team linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/amkul AM team website: Website van de eenheid

Project

KU Leuven seeks a highly motivated PhD candidate for a fully funded, four-year international doctoral position within the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) project TURBO-IMPACT (TURBOmachinery Innovative Manufacturing, Processing, Analysis, Characterization, and Topology ; Website: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101311350). The TurboImpact project, funded by Horizon Europe – MSCA-DN, tackles challenges in designing, optimizing, selecting materials, and manufacturing small-scale turbomachinery for applications in heat pumps, fuel cells, organic Rankine cycles, or gas turbines. This project develops robust system and component design methods, an integrated manufacturing platform, and multi-material joining techniques to efficiently produce small-scale turbomachinery. In that large EU project, This PhD researcher (DC7) will work at KU Leuven and focus on increasing the fundamental understanding of multi-metal Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing for small-scale turbomachinery. Metals with high temperature-resistance will be targeted with special focus on the relation between material characteristics, LPBF process parameters, and resulting mechanical performance. The doctoral candidate will:

• Use and extend beyond state-of-the-art equipment available in Leuven and investigate 1D and 3D powder deposition strategies inside LPBF equipment
• Design and validate a multi-physical digital model to predict ideal LPBF parameters and scanning strategies with focus on the interface regions
• Study the influence of local laser remelting on surface properties, porosity and general interface quality
• Investigate the relationship between material, process, and final properties

The project includes potential international secondments at DTU (Prof. G. Bissacco, Denmark) and Amnovis (Dr. R. Wauthle, Belgium). The researcher is supervised by Prof. Brecht Van Hooreweder (www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00059721), director of Leuven.AM and head of the AM team. The AM team currently counts >25 researchers and is pioneering in metal AM since 1990. More information on the website (www.mech.kuleuven.be/en/research/am/) or linkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/amkul).

Profile

• I have a master degree in engineering, physics or mathematics and performed above average in comparison to my peers. I am not in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of recruitment.
• I am proficient in written and spoken English.
• During my courses or prior professional activities, I have gathered some basic experience with the basic physical principles of additive manufacturing and/or with the basic principles of manufacturing and mechanical behavior of materials or I have a profound interest in these topics.
• I demonstrate a strong sense of initiative and responsibility, while also being an effective and collaborative team player.
• Based on interactions and discussions with my supervisors and the colleagues in my team, I set up and update a plan of approach for the upcoming 1 to 3 months to work towards my research goals. I work with a sufficient degree of independence to follow my plan and achieve the goals. I indicate timely when deviations of the plan are required, if goals cannot be met or if I want to discuss intermediate results or issues.
• In frequent reporting, varying between weekly to monthly, I show the results that I have obtained and I give a well-founded interpretation of those results. I iterate on my wo