ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Space exploration is one of boldest and most exciting endeavors that humanity has undertaken, and it holds enormous promise for the future. Our next challenges for the spatial conquest include bringing back samples to Earth by means of robotic missions and continuing the manned exploration program, which aims at sending human beings to Mars and bring them home safely. Inaccurate prediction of the heat-flux to the surface of the spacecraft heat shield can be fatal for the crew or the success of a robotic mission. This quantity is estimated during the design phase. An accurate prediction is a particularly complex task, regarding modelling of the following phenomena that are potential “mission killers:” 1) Radiation of the plasma in the shock layer, 2) Complex surface chemistry on the thermal protection material, 3) Flow transition from laminar to turbulent. Our poor understanding of the coupled mechanisms of radiation, ablation, and transition leads to the difficulties in flux prediction. To avoid failure and ensure safety of the astronauts and payload, engineers resort to “safety factors” to determine the thickness of the heat shield, at the expense of the mass of embarked payload. Thinking out of the box and basic research are thus necessary for advancements of the models that will better define the environment and requirements for the design and safe operation of tomorrow’s space vehicles and planetary probes for the manned space exploration. The three basic ingredients for predictive science are: 1) Physico-chemical models, 2) Computational methods, 3) Experimental data. We propose to follow a complementary approach for prediction. The proposed research aims at: “Integrating new advanced physico-chemical models and computational methods, based on a multidisciplinary approach developed together with physicists, chemists, and applied mathematicians, to create a top-notch multiphysics and multiscale numerical platform for simulations of planetary atmosphere entries, crucial to the new challenges of the manned space exploration program. Experimental data will also be used for validation, following state-of-the-art uncertainty quantification methods.”

1 494 892 €

Start date: 2010-09-01, End date: 2015-08-31

"Tissue engineering (TE), the interdisciplinary field combining biomedical and engineering sciences in the search for functional man-made organ replacements, has key issues with the quantity and quality of the generated products. Protocols followed in the lab are mainly trial and error based, requiring a huge amount of manual interventions and lacking clear early time-point quality criteria to guide the process. As a result, these processes are very hard to scale up to industrial production levels. BRIDGE aims to fortify the engineering aspects of the TE field by adding a higher level of understanding and control to the manufacturing process (MP) through the use of in silico models. BRIDGE will focus on the bone TE field to provide proof of concept for its in silico approach. The combination of the applicant's well-received published and ongoing work on a wide range of modelling tools in the bone field combined with the state-of-the-art experimental techniques present in the TE lab of the additional participant allows envisaging following innovation and impact: 1. proof-of-concept of the use of an in silico blue-print for the design and control of a robust modular TE MP; 2. model-derived optimised culture conditions for patient derived cell populations increasing modular robustness of in vitro chondrogenesis/endochondral ossification; 3. in silico identification of a limited set of in vitro biomarkers that is predictive of the in vivo outcome; 4. model-derived optimised culture conditions increasing quantity and quality of the in vivo outcome of the TE MP; 5. incorporation of congenital defects in the in silico MP design, constituting a further validation of BRIDGE’s in silico approach and a necessary step towards personalised medical care. We believe that the systematic – and unprecedented – integration of (bone) TE and mathematical modelling, as proposed in BRIDGE, is required to come to a rationalized, engineering approach to design and control bone TE MPs."

1 191 440 €

Start date: 2011-12-01, End date: 2016-11-30

The continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 due to anthropogenic emissions is leading to significant changes in climate, with the industry accounting for one-third of all the energy used globally and for almost 40% of worldwide CO2 emissions. Fast actions are required to decrease the concentration of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, value that has currently reaching 400 ppm. Among the technological possibilities that are on the table to reduce CO2 emissions, carbon capture and storage into geological deposits is one of the main strategies that is being applied. However, the final objective of this strategy is to remove CO2 without considering the enormous potential of this molecule as a source of carbon for the production of valuable compounds. Nature has developed an effective and equilibrated mechanism to concentrate CO2 and fixate the inorganic carbon into organic material (e.g., glucose) by means of enzymatic action. Mimicking Nature and take advantage of millions of years of evolution should be considered as a basic starting point in the development of smart and highly effective processes. In addition, the use of amino-acid salts for CO2 capture is envisaged as a potential approach to recover CO2 in the form of (bi)carbonates. The project CO2LIFE presents the overall objective of developing a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into valuable molecules using membrane technology. The strategy followed in this project is two-fold: i) CO2 membrane-based absorption-crystallization process on basis of using amino-acid salts, and ii) CO2 conversion into glucose or salts by using enzymes as catalysts supported on or retained by membranes. The final product, i.e. (bi)carbonates or glucose, has a large interest in the (bio)chemical industry, thus, new CO2 emissions are avoided and the carbon cycle is closed. This project will provide a technological solution at industrial scale for the removal and reutilization of CO2.

1 302 710 €

Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31

Over one million finite element analyses are preformed in engineering offices every day and finite elements come with the price of mesh generation. This proposal aims at creating two breakthroughs in the art of mesh generation that will be directly beneficial to the finite element community at large. The first challenge of HEXTREME is to take advantage of the massively multi-threaded nature of modern computers and to parallelize all the aspects of the mesh generation process at a fine grain level. Reducing the meshing time by more than one order of magnitude is an ambitious objective: if minutes can become seconds, then success in this research would definitively radically change the way in which engineers deal with mesh generation. This project then proposes an innovative approach to overcoming the major difficulty associated with mesh generation: it aims at providing a fast and reliable solution to the problem of conforming hexahedral mesh generation. Quadrilateral meshes in 2D and hexahedral meshes in 3D are usually considered to be superior to triangular/tetrahedral meshes. Even though direct tetrahedral meshing techniques have reached a level of robustness that allow us to treat general 3D domains, there may never exist a direct algorithm for building unstructured hex-meshes in general 3D domains. In HEXTREME, an indirect approach is envisaged that relies on recent developments in various domains of applied mathematics and computer science such as graph theory, combinatorial optimization or computational geometry. The methodology that is proposed for hex meshing is finally extended to the difficult problem of boundary layer meshing. Mesh generation is one important step of the engineering analysis process. Yet, a mesh is a tool and not an aim. A specific task of the project is dedicated to the interaction with research partners that are committed to beta-test the results of HEXTREME. All the results of HEXTREME will be provided as an open source in Gmsh.

2 244 238 €

Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30