Turbine Durability Engineer

Cyient•East Hartford, CT

About The Position

The Senior Hot Section Durability Engineer is a technical leader responsible for ensuring combustor and turbine gas-path components meet time-on-wing, repairability, and Hot Section Refurbishment Interval (HSRI) requirements while maintaining performance, fuel efficiency, manufacturability, and cost goals. The role spans the full product life cycle, from early concept design and optimization through development engine testing, certification, field support, and aftermarket engineering. The engineer designs and assesses advanced high-temperature hardware, including turbine airfoils, blade outer air seals (BOAS), combustor liner panels, and cast heat exchangers.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field.
12+ years of experience in hot-section turbine, combustor, or high-temperature component durability.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex durability analyses, investigations, and cross-functional decision making.
Strong communication skills and the ability to influence design, manufacturing, and program leadership.
U.S. citizenship is required due to the nature of defense contracts.
Deep understanding of fluid mechanics and heat transfer, including convection, conduction, radiation, and aerothermal loads on hot-section components.
Strong knowledge of material properties and high-temperature distress mechanisms, including TBC spallation, bond coat and substrate oxidation, airfoil creep, and TMF and LCF/HCF interactions.
Familiarity with manufacturing processes and variability, including core die tooling and internal passage formation, investment casting of superalloys, advanced coating systems, and cooling hole drilling and finishing processes.
Proficiency with finite element analysis (FEA) and heat transfer tools.
Experience with commercial FEA software, such as ANSYS Structural and Thermal Analysis using Workbench and APDL, and life analysis codes.
Hands-on experience using CAD tools such as NX or Creo.
Programming capability in Python, MATLAB, or an equivalent language.

Nice To Haves

Master’s or PhD degree.
Experience with conjugate analyses and coupled physics.

Responsibilities

Lead durability strategy for turbine and combustor components, ensuring compliance with time-on-wing, repairability, and HSRI targets.
Design and assess turbine airfoils, BOAS, combustor liners, internal cooling schemes, film cooling technologies, thermal barrier coatings, and advanced materials.
Develop and execute mechanical and time-dependent damage predictions, including creep, oxidation, TBC spallation, and thermomechanical fatigue (TMF).
Conduct full conjugate heat transfer (CHT) and coupled aerothermal-structural simulations.
Develop reduced-order empirical models and 1D thermal models for rapid design iteration.
Evaluate the durability impact of complex internal cores, cooling geometries, and advanced manufacturing processes.
Conduct and lead root-cause investigations using new, returned, and repaired hardware to understand field performance, distress progression, and failure mechanisms.
Provide technical leadership in design reviews, safety boards, and program milestones; mentor junior engineers on durability methods and best practices.
Support manufacturing and supply chain by assessing process capabilities, anticipated variability, and implications for durability and quality.
Develop and refine internal tools, models, and methodologies to accelerate durability assessments and improve prediction fidelity.
Model durability impacts of environmental and mission factors such as sand ingestion, corrosion, and high-cycle thermal transients.