Principal R&D Simulation Engineer (FEA) - PVH

About the role

Medtronic's Peripheral Vascular Health (PVH) unit treats peripheral arterial and venous disease and is expanding its product portfolio. As a Principal R&D Simulation Engineer in Galway, Ireland, you will develop and run multi-disciplinary models to assess design risk and ensure device and system reliability, safety and performance, giving insights for design decisions.

Key responsibilities

• Work with cross-functional teams to define a modelling and simulation strategy for design optimisation and reliability evaluation of peripheral vascular devices.
• Build predictive engineering tools and techniques for the product development process.
• Run simulation studies of stress and strain in implant components.
• Carry out virtual design and prototyping of implants, delivery systems and single-use devices, using non-linear FEA tools for large deformation, multibody contact, dynamic impact, modal analysis and multiaxial cyclic fatigue.
• Convert in-vivo loading from patient imaging into FEA boundary conditions and reconstruct patient anatomy into meshed FEA models.
• Use CFD or FSI tools to predict flow conditions around peripheral vascular interventions.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Engineering Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics or a related discipline.
• Minimum 7 years of industry experience, or a Master's degree with 5 years of technical experience, or a PhD with 3 years of relevant experience.
• Experience applying fatigue analysis principles to metals, including superelastic and shape memory alloys, and simulating highly deformed metals, polymers, fabrics, biological tissue and pulsatile flow.
• Proactive creation of algorithms and scripts to automate post-processing of FEA output.
• Experience developing model validation experiments, material testing protocols to calibrate constitutive models, and hydrodynamic testing protocols such as PIV.
• Familiarity with ASME VVUQ10, 20 and 40 to drive model credibility, and preparation of detailed modelling and simulation reports supporting regulatory submissions.

Required skills

• Deep understanding of the finite element method and commercially available FEA software, plus fundamentals of mechanics and/or CFD and FSI.
• Nice to have: significant experience with Abaqus, LS-DYNA or similar FEA software, extensive experience meshing complex 3D structures, and CAD software.
• Nice to have: knowledge of engineering mechanics, mechanical design, material processing, fatigue analysis, metallurgy and strength of materials, and risk management including FMEA.

What we offer

• Competitive salary in Ireland of 81,120 to 121,680 EUR, depending on experience and skills.
• A flexible benefits package.
• Eligibility for the Medtronic Incentive Plan (MIP).