Internship: Fast Physics

Location: Gorinchem

We offer you an Ocean of Possibilities. Join our family.

About us

Damen aims to become the world's most sustainable and digitally connected shipyard. The Research, Development & Innovation (RD&I) department develops and implements the technology and know-how to achieve these ambitions. We actively assist the business in creating an innovative product portfolio and provide forward-thinking guidance to improve the quality and performance of Damen's products and services. You will be joining the Data Science team within Damen RD&I located in Gorinchem.

Our department focuses on applying cutting-edge data and AI solutions to Damen’s shipbuilding and maritime operations. The team includes domain experts in physics-informed machine learning, simulation acceleration, predictive maintenance, computer vision, and operational analytics. This internship is part of a strategicAI researchproject aimed at accelerating complexship-performancesimulationsusingphysics-informedmachine learning, neural operators, geometric deep learning,andemerging Physics Transformer models.

The role

As an intern, you will work on theFast Physics project,wherethemainobjectiveis to research, improve, and extend AI models that can act as fast surrogate models forhigh-fidelityship-performancesimulations. The internship is primarily focused on artificial intelligence and scientific machine learning, with CFD data used as the learning target and validation basis.

Rather than running time-consuming physics-based simulations for every design iteration, we develop AI architectures that learn from vessel geometries, operating conditions, and simulation outputs to estimate quantities such as resistance, pressuredistributions, and flow fields. A central topic is the exploration of recent Physics Transformer models and neural-operator architectures, and how these can be adapted to complex maritime geometries.

You will contribute to improving our current Physics Transformer model and architecture by benchmarking recent research, designing model improvements, running training experiments, andvalidatingperformance across different hull forms, operating conditions, and simulation fidelities. The outcome should be a stronger AI model prototype and a clearresearch contribution on how transformer-based physics models can support fast simulation and early-stage design exploration. The assignment can bea thesis/graduateinternshipandcouldstart fromSeptemberonwards.

Key accountabilities

You will be responsible for the following aspects

• Research the latest developments in Physics Transformer models, neural operators, and physics-informed machine learning for simulation acceleration.
• Improve the current Physics Transformer model and architecture, with a focus on scalability, generalization, andpredictionaccuracy for maritime simulation data.
• Design and run AI experiments in Python usingPyTorch, including model training, validation, benchmarking, and ablation studies.
• Work with CFD simulation data, ship hull geometries, and numerical outputs as input for model development and evaluation.
• Collaborate with Data Scientists, naval architects, and external research partners to translate technical requirements into AI model improvements.
• Document results, compare model variants, and present findings and recommendations to the team regularly.

Skills & Experience

We are looking for a student who

• Iscurrently pursuinganBachelororMasterin Machine Learning, Computer Science, Data Science, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics or a related technicalfield.
• Has strong programming experience in Python and hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks such asPyTorch; experiencewith transformerarchitectures, graph neural networks, neural operators, or scientific machine learning is highly preferred.
• Has an affinity with physics-informed AI, surrogate modeling, or simulation acceleration; familiarity with CFD data, 3D geometry, meshes, or numerical simulation outputs is considered a plus.
• Is motivated to research and improvestate-of-the-artAI model architectures, especially Physics Transformer models, for real-world engineering applications.
• Communicates fluently in English.

What we offer

• Mentoring at academic level will be available throughout the internship.
• Internship/graduation fee and travel allowance will be paid for the duration of the assignment.
• Opportunity to contribute to a high-impact innovation project in collaboration with leading maritime companies, institutes and universities.
• Research publication is likely possible with a possible extension of the internship period.
• Possibility to visit partner hubs or research centers (e.g., MARIN in Wageningen) depending on project needs and availability

Other

Are you ready to sail into your new adventure at Damen? Don’t hesitate, send us your motivation letter and resume here.

Due to housing issues we cannot accept international students that do not have accommodation in the Netherlands yet.

Recruiter

Liselotte van Veenendaal

Email

[email protected]

Please apply through the Apply Button. Due to GDPR reasons we cannot accept applications by email.