Members

MEMA

Applied mechanics and mathematics

Secteur des sciences et technologies

MEMA

Euler
Avenue Georges Lemaître 4-6, boîte L4.05.02,
1348, Louvain-la-Neuve

+32 10 47 21 80



Arthur Bawin arthur.bawin@uclouvain.be
Tania Sofia Cacao Ferreira tania.cacao@uclouvain.be
Alexandre Chemin alexandre.chemin@uclouvain.be
Guillaume Coiffier guillaume.coiffier@uclouvain.be
Nathan Coppin nathan.coppin@uclouvain.be
Mattéo Couplet matteo.couplet@uclouvain.be
Gaëtan Dagnelie gaetan.dagnelie@uclouvain.be
Miguel De Le Court miguel.delecourt@uclouvain.be
Vincent Degrooff vincent.degrooff@uclouvain.be
Laurent Delannay laurent.delannay@uclouvain.be
Eric Deleersnijder eric.deleersnijder@uclouvain.be
Issam Doghri issam.doghri@uclouvain.be
Insaf Draoui insaf.draoui@uclouvain.be
Guillaume Duprez guillaume.duprez@uclouvain.be
Mohamed Haddad mohamed.haddad@uclouvain.be
Guillaume Hanon guillaume.hanon@uclouvain.be
Michel Henry michel.henry@uclouvain.be
Ange Ishimwe ange.ishimwe@uclouvain.be
Amaury Johnen amaury.johnen@uclouvain.be
Jonathan Lambrechts jonathan.lambrechts@uclouvain.be
Astrid Leduc astrid.leduc@uclouvain.be
Vincent Legat vincent.legat@uclouvain.be
Thomas Leyssens thomas.leyssens@uclouvain.be
Saad Mortadi saad.mortadi@uclouvain.be
Chiheb Naili chiheb.naili@uclouvain.be
Jaya Naithani jaya.naithani@uclouvain.be
Amit Ravindra Patil amit.patil@uclouvain.be
Illy Perl illy.perl@uclouvain.be
Antoine Quiriny antoine.quiriny@uclouvain.be
Jean-François Remacle jean-francois.remacle@uclouvain.be
Roman Rolinsky roman.rolinsky@uclouvain.be
Simon Yans simon.yans@uclouvain.be




The aim of the project is to realize multibloc decomposition of 3D volumes in order to generate full hex meshes. Nowadays, this kind of decomposition is done by hand. The purpose of this work is to be able to do it in an automatic way. In order to reach this objective, we are generating 3D crossfields in this volume to locate singular points and automatize the decomposition.


graduated in physical engineering at Université Catholique de Louvain in 2018 and is currently pursuing a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Vincent Legat. The goal of his thesis is to study the performance of the MigFlow Software using applications that require the management of frictional contacts.

In computational physics, the vast majority of Partial Differential Equation (PDE) solvers rely on a spatial discretization of the bulk of the domain, typically a mesh. Thus far, geometrically complex domains are discretized predominantly using unstructured meshes, on which the PDE is subsequently solved using the Finite Element Method. Methods based on unstructured meshes are however inherently penalized in their computational efficiency. On the contrary, the regularity of block structured meshes can be leveraged to build efficient algorithms. For this reason, automatic generation of block-structured meshes is the holy grail of mesh generation.

A first objective of the research project is therefore to explore new approaches for generating multiblock decompositions of general 3D domains. We will build on the recent developments in 3D frame fields and aim at improving formulations based on the constrained minimization of an energy function. A second lead that will be explored is based on the decomposition of the domain in convex sub-regions, on which existing methods are more robust.

Constructing a new class of meshes is only relevant if those meshes are endowed with a true benefit in terms of CPU/GPU time and accuracy. A second objective is therefore to extend existing Computational Fluid
Dynamics technologies for Cartesian grids to multiblock grids. In particular, we want to take advantage of the conformal map-like nature of the mesh to increase computational performance, and also show how our methodology can be applied to models with moving or deforming boundaries.

Technician - Vigilante

I am developing a GPU version of the SLIM ocean model in order to significantly increase its performance, which unlocks previously unreachable resolutions.

Most current ocean models still use the CPU for all the computations, which makes them terribly slow, and unable to use the next generation of supercomputers such as LUMI. Among the ocean models that are accelerated on the GPU, all of them either use finite differences, which lacks flexibility in the meshes, or finite volumes, which are often low order methods. Contrary to that, SLIM uses the discontinuous Galerkin Finite elements method, which is known for its low diffusivity in advective processes and maps very well to the massively parallel architecture of the GPU.

The current GPU version is fully working in 2D and it absolutely destroys the CPU version, showing a speedups of 50?130x. (R9 5900X vs RTX2080 vs A100). See the attached figure to get an idea of the damage.


Within the field of solid mechanics, my research aims at an improved understanding of the influence of microstructure and damage on the deformability, the strength and the toughness of both natural and high-performance engineering materials. One important challenge is to address anisotropic, non-linear and possibly unstable responses resulting from microstructural changes in plastically deformed heterogeneous materials. To assist the interpretation of experimental observations, performed at various length scales, I develop original, physically-sound, constitutive models and apply them in computational predictions of the microscopic and macroscopic mechanical response. The fields of application span many engineering disciplines, among which mechanical manufacturing, biomechanics and structural integrity.

has a degree in electrical and mechanical engineering, and a doctorate in applied sciences (mechanics). His research interests focus on the development and use of unstructured-mesh models for simulating geophysical and environmental fluid flows, as well as the related ecological processes. His domains of interest comprise most of the hydrosphere, i.e. lakes, rivers, estuaries, coastal regions, shelf seas and the World Ocean.
He is coordinating the SLIM project (Second-generation Louvain-la-Neuve Ice-ocean Model, www.climate.be/slim) and he is the co-founder of the Constituent-oriented Age and Residence time Theory (CART, www.climate.be/cart)
He has held research or teaching positions in Belgium and abroad. He currently is a reader at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), where he is lecturing on several aspects of mechanics. He is also an honorary researcher with the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS, www.fnrs.be). On October 1st, 2014, he accepted a five-year, part-time professorship in applied mathematics at the Delft University of Technology (Delft, The Netherlands, www.tudelft.be).
Additional pieces of information may be found on his website (www.ericd.be).


a Civil Engineer that graduated from The National School of Applied Sciences of Oujda, Morocco in 2017. Now she is a teaching Assistant preparing her PhD thesis under the supervision of professors Eric Deleersnijder and Vincent Legat. the topic of the thesis is: Methods of Modeling and diagnostic of transport processes in tropical river-delta-sea continuum Application to the Mahakam delta (Indonesia).

Where does the sense of touching come from? How does the brain determine the force which should be exerted in order to avoid that an object slips between our fingers? What is the role of the finger print? Based on an original modeling of the biomechanics of a finger, this project aims to address some important questions raised in the field of neurosciences and of tactile perception. In particular, we will study the transitions between static contact and sliding when one of our fingers hinges on a rigid surface. The challenge is to predict strains at the interface between epiderm and derm, which is where we find the mechanosensors that are at the origin of neuronal stimuli used by the brain in order to command muscular activity. The finite element modeling, which will account for the physiology of the finger, and actually also of the finger print, should also help establishing the link between the hyperelastic rigidity of biological tissues and the evolution of the coefficient of friction. Results of finite element simulations will be compared to experimental measures obtained using a device which has been elaborated at UCLouvain over the last decade. Our goal is to ensure that the mechanistic model to be developed here contributes to a greatly enriched evaluation of the neuronal signals recorded during the experiments.


Just like many other metals, aluminium alloys are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. This may result in early failure, which raises maintenance costs and may even forbid the use of these alloys in some applications (corrosive environment, H storage, ...) where their excellent strength- to-density ratio would otherwise be a significant asset.
My research is an original investigation of the influence of diffusible H on the micromechanics and the occurrence of damage inside lightly alloyed aluminium polycrystals. It has two main objectives. On the one hand, we will investigate how diffusible H influences dislocation-mediated plasticity in aluminium alloys. On the other hand, we will analyse the diffusion and the trapping of H inside samples with composite laminate structures. The two goals are closely interconnected since the diffusion routes and the H traps are expected to be influenced by the dislocation substructure and also by the build-up of internal stresses within the multiphase polycrystal.


SLIM is a simulation software which resolves the hydrodynamical equation with the use of finite elemnts. My goal is to developpe and improve the 3D model of SLIM. The two criteria are the precision of the results and the computation speed.

graduated as a physician engineer at the University of Liège (Belgium) in 2011. Then he accomplished a PhD in the topic of quadrangular mesh generation and cuvilinear mesh validation, under the supervision of professor Christophe Geuzaine. He started a postdoctoral research in January 2016 under the supervision of professor Jean-François Remacle for working on curvilinear mesh generation, hex-dominant mesh generation and mesh validation.

obtained his phd "Finite element methods for coast flows: Application to the Great Barrier Reef" in the SLIM project at the University catholique de Louvain . He is now working as research engineer for the Institute of Mechanics, Material and Civil Engineering in the same university. His research topics include mesh generation, finite element coastal ocean modeling and multiscale fluid-particle modeling.

Accounting

is Full Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics in the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain. His research topics include the development of mathematical models and numerical tools for predicting the behaviour of complex materials and analysing their forming processes., computational rheology, fluid mechanics, modeling of polymeric solutions and melts, modeling of turbulent flows, computational geometry and design, numerical software engineering, non-linear finite element methods and formulations, error estimation and adaptive numerical methods, parallel computing.







PFEM

After his Engineering Degree at the University of Liège in Belgium in 1992, Jean-François Remacle obtained in 1997 a Ph.D. from the same University. He then spent two years at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal as a post-doctoral fellow of Prof. F. Trochu, followed by three years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the research team of Prof. M. Shephard (one year as research associate followed by two years as research assistant professor). It was during his stay at Rensselaer that Pr. Remacle started to work closely with Mark Shephard on mesh generation. Pr. Shephard's seminal work on mesh generation is one of the most important contributions ever. It was also during that stay that Pr. Remacle started the development of Gmsh, the open source mesh generator. After these five years in Northern America, Jean-François Remacle joined the Université catholique de Louvain in 2002 as an assistant Professor. He then became Associate Professor in 2005 and Full Professor in 2012. In the following years of his return to Europe, Pr. Remacle dedicated a large part of his research to mesh generation.