FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS ENGINEER, MID-LEVEL TO EXPERIENCED

Skyward, Ltd. is a rapidly growing small business, located in Dayton Ohio, whose mission is to enhance the survivability and mission effectiveness of our customers’ people and resources through professional and engineering services and research and development. Expertise areas include test & evaluation, modeling & simulation, machine learning, software development, and 3D scanning and reverse engineering, with focused solutions in the areas of fire protection, structural analysis, unmanned aerial systems and geospatial products, and additive manufacturing.

SKILLS:

Required

• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Good communication skills to foster cooperative working relationships.
• Desire and willingness to learn new skills, tools, and processes.
• Self-starting and proactive.
• Experience performing finite element analyses.
• Familiarity with aircraft sustainment, fatigue, and structural integrity issues

Optional but desirable

• Experience with Explicit FEA, SPH, CFD, or Eulerian tools.
• Experience with tools like LS-DYNA, CTH, ALE3D, Impetus AFEA, Altair Hyperworks, Hypermesh, ANSA, or Solidworks.
• Experience with Linux.
• Experience with fatigue-induced damage assessment, stress and/or crack analysis
• Experience writing simple computer programs or scripts.
• Master’s Degree is a plus.
• Experience with aircraft survivability analysis.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Bachelor’s degree required in aerospace, aeronautical, or mechanical engineering.
Eight or more years engineering experience.
US citizenship required with an ability to obtain Secret Clearance.

ABOUT THIS ROLE:

Skyward, Ltd. is a growing Dayton, Ohio-based aerospace company and is currently seeking a candidate for our Modeling & Simulation group performing finite element analyses (FEA) for the U.S. Armed Services and commercial aerospace customers. FEA work will involve creating and validating dynamic FEA models, including shocks, impacts, and detonations, particularly in support of combat air and ground vehicle survivability. This position will also involve working with our software team to support the further development and commercial launch of our rapid structural analysis code for assessing aircraft survivability and sustainability. Sample projects include utilizing machine learning to speed the analysis of the residual strength of damaged components, aeroelastic effects on damaged aircraft wings, and analyzing and modeling test data. This is an in-office or remote opportunity for a mid-level to more experienced engineer with at least an accredited bachelor’s degree in aerospace, aeronautical, or mechanical engineering.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop FE models based upon physics-based principles.
• Perform FE meshing functions to prepare for analysis.
• Debug and run FE models to successfully accomplish solutions.
• Develop software and scripts to speed functions and perform batch processing.
• Develop new workflows and software to advance the state of the art in survivability, vulnerability, and lethality modeling and simulation.
• Develop and adapt workflows and software to perform fatigue-related damage tolerance assessment
• Interact with customers and partners to develop an understanding of program issues and interact with the modeling and simulation team to devise solutions.
• Validate simulations using test data.
• Perform data analysis and organize data to derive conclusions.
• Write reports, develop presentations, and assist in proposal writing.
• Support the development of 3D models.
• Support the Test & Evaluation team with onsite data collection, as necessary.
• Travel as required to visit customers and test sites.