DC4 - Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Defect-Induced Cracking in Nitinol

Organisation/Company Ingpuls Gmb H Research Field Engineering » Materials engineering Engineering » Mechanical engineering Engineering » Biomedical engineering Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions Ph D Positions Application Deadline 2 Sep 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Dublin) Country Germany Type of Contract Not Applicable Job Status Full-time Offer Starting Date 1 Oct 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Horizon Europe - MSCA Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

Offer Description

MEDALLOY is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Industrial Doctoral Network which will develop advanced Nitinol alloys for medical device applications.

MEDALLOY will provide world-class training for nine doctoral candidates (DCs) through an international consortium across six countries, which consists of four academic, two clinical and five industry members who together operate across the entire Medical Device Value Chain, including material production, manufacturing and delivering devices.

MEDALLOY researchers will enable the next generation of Nitinol devices by optimising manufacturing processes, enhancing defect tolerance and predicting fatigue life and device performance.

This position aims to understand how inclusions and surface defects affect the fatigue life of Nitinol used in medical devices.

The researcher will investigate whether flaws such as inclusions or surface imperfections act as critical crack nucleation sites or can be considered benign under cyclic loading.

Experimental work will include quantifying inclusion size and morphology and assessing the influence of surface features such as oxides, wire marks, and indents on stress concentrations.

These data will inform numerical and analytical models of stress distribution, crack initiation, and propagation.

The project will develop a damage-tolerant design framework that relates fatigue life to a quantitative fatigue index parameter, enabling prediction of long-term material performance.

The researcher will collaborate with industrial and academic partners on specimen fabrication, fatigue testing, and computational modelling.

The expected outcome is a validated approach to predict defect tolerance in Nitinol components, supporting safer and more reliable biomedical device designs.

This DC will split their research time between Ingpuls Gmb H in Bochum Germany and Politecnico di Milano, Italy and receive their Ph D award from Politecnico di Milano,

A degree in Mechanical, Biomedical, Materials, Civil or Structural Engineering (or related disciplines) that enables registration in the hosting University and an excellent track record of academic achievemen

• Specific Requirements
• At the time of application, applicants must not have resided in the host country for more than 12 months in the three years immediately before the appointment.
• A degree in Mechanical, Biomedical, Materials, Civil or Structural Engineering (or related disciplines) that enables registration in the hosting University and an excellent track record of academic achievement.
• Applicants must not already be in possession of a doctoral degree or registered as a doctoral student at the date of the recruitment.
• English proficiency that enables doctoral candidates to understand and express themselves in both written and spoken English.

Non-native English speakers are required to provide evidence of competency an IELTS score of 6.5, or equivalent, is the minimum requirement.

• Experience through coursework, project work, research work, or industry experience in one or more of the following: experimental mechanics, computational modelling, or materials processing.
• Willingness to travel for secondments, training events, and consortium meetings.
• Experience of working in international, multidisciplinary, or industrial research environments.
• Experience in one or more of the following, as appropriate for the respective project: nickel titanium alloys, shape-memory/superelastic materials, fatigue testing, fracture mechanics, thermomechanical characterisation, additive manufacturing, medical device simulation or design, material simulation, experimental design, analytical modelling, finite element modelling, design of experiments, material characterization by x-ray diffraction and electron microscopy.
• Proficiency in other languages of the consortium: Italian, Czech, German
• Experience preparing scientific reports, presentations, or publications.
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