The Department of Mechanical Engineering (MEK) of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has an open PhD position investigating Integrated-Sustainable Product Development for the development and production of green fibre bottles. The PhD is part of a project financed by the Danish research foundation, Innovationsfonden, in collaboration with the Danish company EcoXpac A/S (www.ecoxpac.dk/) and the Carlsberg Group (www.carlsberggroup.com/).

At DTU Mechanical Engineering, the project team is composed of four academic faculty in the areas of Design, Sustainability and Manufacturing and two further PhD students working on the same project (one on the mould tooling and the other on the production process). 

Background
The Green Fibre Bottle (GFB) project is an exciting new project developing a biodegradable bottle created from paper pulp. The early prototypes of the bottle are very promising, with good surface qualities, geometrical and structural characteristics. However, there are huge technical and scientific challenges ahead to mature the basic concept towards a viable mass production solution. It is the intention that Carlsberg will adopt the Green Fibre Bottle for packaging one of their products; at this point the goal is ambitious “to bottle beer in a paper bottle”, however, the selected product may change during the scoping phase. The overall project will focus on design and development in three main areas, namely the product/bottle (this PhD position), the mould tooling (a second PhD) and the moulding process (a third PhD project). It is vital that these three sub-projects are developed in an integrated manner with shared models, which will enable an optimised design over four shared Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs are ambitious targets, setting limits for Energy Consumption, Production Throughput, Product Quality Characteristics and Product Cost.

See the Green Fibre Bottle project press release by Carlsberg here.

Responsibilities and tasks
This project offers a unique research situation where a new product (the bottle) will be developed at the same time as a new production system. Early moulding prototypes have shown the concept to be promising; however, there are a great deal of challenges in bringing the product and production up to the scales and standards of mass production. This will be a huge challenge as all KPIs are in technical conflict, meaning it will be the role of the product developer to achieve a delicate balance between them. This will require integrated modelling of the four KPIs where this PhD will have particular ownership over the sustainability or energy KPI. 

Application
To apply, please read the full job advertisement at www.career.dtu.dk

Application deadline: March 20^th 2015, 23:59 pm CET.

DTU Mechanical Engineering covers the fundamental engineering disciplines within Solid mechanics, Fluid mechanics, Coastal and Maritime Engineering, Energy systems and energy conversion, Materials and Surface Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Engineering design and Product development. The department has a scientific staff of about 100 persons, 115 PhD students and a technical/administrative support staff of more than 85 persons.

DTU is a technical university providing internationally leading research, education, innovation and public service. Our staff of 5,700 advance science and technology to create innovative solutions that meet the demands of society; and our 10,000 students are being educated to address the technological challenges of the future. DTU is an independent academic university collaborating globally with business, industry, government, and public agencies.