Doctoral theses

Numerical simulation is essential to model flow in porous media and in particular to study underground storages of CO2 or H2. It indeed allows one to test different scenarii by simulating coupled physical mechanisms stemming from various domains (geology, geochemistry, flow and soil mechanics...)

Automotive industry is moving fast to offer hybrid and full electric vehicles in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants.  Then electric motors may be considered as one of the most important device in the next emerging vehicle architecture.

With the reduction of hydrocarbon resources and increasingly stringent standards to deal with the problem of climate change, the development of clean-up internal combustion engines constitutes a major technical challenge. The use of hydrogen is considered a promising alternative for vehicles. Two main options are possible.

Among IFPEN applications, finding the optimal configuration of the inputs of a model leading to the best admissible performance appears in the design of complex systems such as electric motors or floating wind turbines.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been successfully applied to a number of problems, such as robotic control, task scheduling, and telecommunications.

Electrification of vehicles and improved efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE) are the main levers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The second priority of the French strategy for the deployment of low-carbon hydrogen is the development of renewable hydrogen for use in fuel cells or for combustion in a spark-ignition engine (SIE).

The performance of simulators has a direct impact both on the quality of the simulation results and on the study of a wide variety of scientific hypotheses.

The drop in production costs of distributed energy production systems and electrochemical storage systems coupled with the evolution of regulations make it possible to build local energy management operations.

Environmental and health concerns are now accelerating behavioral changes related to personal mobility in an unprecedented way.

The recent advent of electric vehicles is pushing car manufacturers to design more compact electric motors running at higher speeds, leading to higher local heat generation. Cooling is therefore crucial to preserve the efficiency and the reliability of the electrical machine.

Alumina-based catalyst supports are used for biomass conversion processes under development. They consist of multi-scale porous materials, obtained in most applications after calcination of boehmite powders (aluminum hydroxide precursor of alumina) and composed of dense alumina nano-platelets with complex arrangements.

A significant reduction of greenhouse gases emissions is needed to keep global warming at an acceptable level in the next decades. In particular, the decarbonization of the energy and transport sectors is necessary and the use of hydrogen is a plausible solution as its consumption, through combustion processes or in fuel cells, is carbon-free.