[Học bổng du học Bồ Đào Nha]
A call is open to award 1 (one) research grant to develop research activities within field of experimentation in concrete structures under restrained deformation, under the title “New insights into experimental methods for concrete under restrained deformation”. The research grant will carry activities in coordination with COST Action TU1404 “Towards the next generation of standards for service life of cement-based materials and structures” (www.tu1404.eu).
1. Scientific Domain: Civil Engineering or similar.
2. Requirements for admission:
- Master in Civil Engineering or related;
- Fluent in written and spoken English;
- Candidates must be able to program at least in a programming language such as Visual Basic (for applications);
- Candidates with master’s degree, and those with diploma/bachelor plus master, must have final grade greater or equal to 15 values on a scale (0-20) or equivalent, and rank among the 10% best students at the institution that attributes the diploma;
- Additional desirable requisites:
(i) intention to follow the PhD programme at the University of Minho;
(ii) previous experience in experimental work targeted to concrete as material/structure;
(iii) previous experience or capacity in the use of applications such as Solidworks or Autodesk Inventor.
3. Work plan:
1) Improvements and testing of a new approach for testing the thermal dilation coefficient of concrete;
2) Development of a new framework for characterizing the viscoelastic behaviour of concrete (based on preliminary proofs of concept);
3) Numerical/analytical simulation of the experiments mentioned before;
4) Writing scientific publications related to the developed work.
If the selected grantee shows adequate performance during the three initial months of the grant, he/she will be encouraged to follow the PhD programme at the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Minho.
4. Applicable legislation and regulations: Law Nº. 40/2004, of 18 August (status of the scientific researcher fellow); Regulation of the research grants of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. (http://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/regulamento.phtml.pt).
5. Work place: The research work will be developed at the School of Engineering of University of Minho (ISISE – Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering) in Guimarães, Portugal, under the scientific supervision of Prof. Miguel Azenha and Dr. José Granja. For information about the living costs in Guimarães, Portugal, applicants are advised to see the Section “living” in the link See LIVING in http://www.stremum.uminho.pt/#intro.
6. Duration of the grant: The grant will have the duration of 12 months, beginning in September 1, 2016. Upon successful achievement of objectives, the grantee will be in a privileged condition (experience publications) for application to a further 24-month research grant to open in 2017. This total grant duration should be enough for the applicant to reach the end of the PhD programme in Civil Engineering at the University of Minho (in case the applicant is interested).
7. Monthly value of the grant: The value of the grand corresponds to €980, according to the pay scale for the grants funded directly by FCT, I.P. in Portugal (http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores).
8. Selection criteria:
The selection methods will be the following:
- 60% for the analysis of the Curriculum vitae and documentation (course grades, publications, experience in research, letter of recommendation);
- 40% for the interview (which can be conducted through SKYPE, predictably during July 2016).
The Jury reserves the right of not selecting any candidate, if none of the submitted applications (and interviews) meet the expectable profile to ensure a successful achievement of the work envisaged in this Grant.
9. Jury members:
Miguel Ângelo Dias Azenha, Assistant Professor (President);
José Manuel de Sena Cruz, Associate Professor at UM;
Vitor Manuel do Couto Fernandes da Cunha, Auxiliary Researcher at UM;
Paula Dias, Project Manager.
10. Publicitation/notification of results: The final results will be sent by email to the candidates.
11. Application period and structure of the application: The call is open from 17/06/2016 to 01/07/2016.
Applications must be made with the following documents: Curriculum Vitae, certificates of graduation degrees and other documents considered relevant. A minimum of one recommendation letter is mandatory. The recommendation letter must be issued by a former professor of the applicant, and clearly identify that the student is among the top 10% students. The recommendation letter should further include the contact information of the issuer, who should be available for a interaction with the selection committee of the grant.
Applications must submitted through the website of TecMinho, (TecMinho->Oportunidades) through the following addresshttp://www.tecminho.uminho.pt/oport_index.php?zid=568 with clear identification of the reference: ref. 031/TT/2016.