Staff CFD Analysis Engineer
$180,000–$220,000 year
On-siteTorrance, California, United States
Job Summary
Plan and perform high-fidelity CFD and conjugate-heat-transfer analyses in Ansys Fluent for reactor thermal-hydraulics, including geometry preparation, meshing strategy, turbulence-model selection, solver set-up, and convergence assessment. Establish and document the verification and validation basis for CFD work in accordance with ASME V&V 20, including mesh-convergence (GCI) studies and benchmarking against separate-effects and integral-effects test data. Provide and receive boundary conditions across streams, supplying heat-transfer and loss coefficients to the Thermal-Fluid (Flownex) stream, exchanging power/heat-source distributions with Neutronics, and handing thermal/pressure loads to FEA for thermal-stress evaluation. Lead technical reviews, set CFD modelling standards and best practices, and mentor mid-level and junior analysts; support regulator and customer technical interactions. This role supports the Engineering organization's Models & Simulations team, which develops advanced analytical models to support engineering design, performance prediction, and system optimization for Valar Atomics' advanced nuclear systems.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree (or higher) in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering, or a closely related field.
- 8+ years of professional, production-grade CFD analysis experience.
- Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder).
- Demonstrated V&V practice (ASME V&V 20, GCI, validation against test data) and uncertainty quantification.
- Experience operating under a nuclear or other regulated quality program (ASME NQA-1, ISO 9001, 10 CFR 50 Appendix B) and exposure to NRC / ASME regulatory environments.
Desired Qualifications
- Master's degree (or higher) in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Nuclear Engineering, or a closely related field.
- Strong grounding in turbulence modeling (RANS k-ε / k-ω SST and scale-resolving LES/DES), conjugate heat transfer, multiphase and species transport.
- Reactor thermal-hydraulics domain knowledge (natural circulation, passive cooling, coolant behavior for helium, molten salt or liquid metal) is a strong advantage.
- Scripting/automation (Python, journaling, UDFs) and HPC workflow experience; track record of mentoring and leading technical analysis within a team.
- Working knowledge of coupling CFD with systems codes and structural FEA; exposure to advanced-reactor thermal-hydraulics (HTGR, SFR, MSR, micro-reactors) is a plus.
- Track record of mentoring and leading technical systems analysis within a team.
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