Friction stir : much more than welding by Aude Simar (Professor at UCLouvain) Friction stir welding is now well known as a solid-state welding process in particular for the assembly of aluminium alloys.

Pour l’obtention du grade de Docteur en sciences de l’ingénieur et technologie This thesis is a numerical study of turbulent thermal convection driven by free-surface evaporation in water pools. The studied physical phenomenon is closely related to the flow occurring in the early stages of a spent-fuel pool (SFP) loss-of-cooling accident (LOCA), such as that which occurred at Fukushima 2011.

The low-frequency oscillatory motion of wind turbine wakes, also known as wake meandering, is crucial in wind farms as it causes the wake to “periodically” and partially impact downstream machines, thus leading to aggravated unsteady fatigue loads. The wake meandering is therefore a central and fundamental challenge for the development of reliable and affordable wind energy.