ECCOMAS AWARD FOR THE BEST Ph.D THESES OF 2013 ON COMPUTATIONAL METHODS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING
The meeting of the Evaluation Committee for the ECCOMAS award for the best PhD theses 2013 was held on May 9th, 2014 at CIMNE, Barcelona. As a response to the call for tender, the ECCOMAS Member Associations nominated 16 theses. The Evaluation Committee was composed by Nils-Erik Wiberg (chairman), Marino Arroyo, Chris Lacor, Simona Perotto, and Josef Eberhardsteiner (secretary).
After a detailed discussion, a voting process was held in two phases. First, after a secret voting the number of theses was reduced from 16 to 6. In a second round, the number was reduced to 3. One of these ranked above the others. Then the committee ranked the remaining two theses evaluating the different aspects of each. Finally, the committee unanimously agreed on selecting the two winners.
The two winners are:
- Dr. Henning Sauerland (Germany) for the thesis “An XFEM based sharp interface approach for two-phase and free-surface flows”
This PhD thesis provides strong improvements on the standard XFEM method, especially with respect to the simulation of two-phase and free-surface flows. The thesis contains rather attractive numerical simulations with emphasis on challenging engineering applications. - Dr. Francesc Verdugo (Spain) for the thesis “Error assessment and adaptivity for structural transient dynamics”
The PhD thesis is focused on an efficient goal-oriented error estimate for space-time adaption in structural transient dynamics. It covers a full range of research tasks, from theoretical aspects to the implementation of some of the algorithms used industrial codes.
Both theses are outstanding works in Computational Methods combining excellent knowledge of both theory and practice. The award decision was based on the originality of the theses, its scientific contents and the innovative numerical developments.
All nominees will be invited to participate at the next PhD Olympiad to be held in Barcelona, Spain, in conjunction with the joint WCCM-ECCM-ECFD Conference, 20-25 July 2014.
The list of finalists selected by the local-regional ECCOMAS Association is the following:
| Author | Title of the Thesis | Association | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Hale | Meshless Methods for Shear-Deformable Beams and Plates based on Mixed Weak Forms | ACME | UK |
| Rossana Dimitri | Isogeometric treatment of large deformation contact and debonding problems with NURBS and T-Splines | AIMETA/GIMC | Italy |
| Nuno Miguel de Freitas Silva | Behaviour and strength of thin-walled laminated FRP composite structural elements | APMTAC | Portugal |
| Frank Naets | Development of system-level model reduction techniques for flexible multibody simulation | BNCM | Belgium |
| Michael J. Unterberger | Microstructurally-motivated constitutive modeling of cross-linked filamentous actin networks | CEACM | Central Europe |
| Mohamed Jebahi | Discrete continuum coupling method for simulation of laser-induced damage in silica glass | CSMA | France |
| Henning Sauerland | An XFEM Based Sharp Interface Approach for Two-Phase and Free-Surface Flows | GACM | Germany |
| Charlotte Kuhn | Numerical and Analytical Investigation of a Phase Field Model for Fracture | GAMM | Germany |
| Sebastien Le Martelot | Contribution to the direct numerical simulation of boiling flows | GAMNI/SMAI | France |
| Evangelos Papoutsis-Kiachagias | Adjoint methods for turbulent flows, applied to shape or topology optimization and robust design | GRACM | Greece |
| Gil Marom | Fluid-Structure Interaction Modeling of Native Aortic Valve with Root Replacement and Asymmetric Configuration | IACMM | Israel |
| Benjamin Sanderse | Energy-Conserving Discretization Methods for the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations | NMC | Netherlands |
| Anna Ask | Modeling and Simulation of Electro-Viscoelastic Polymers | NoACM | North Europe |
| Piotr W. Sielicki | Masonry Failure under Unusual Impulse Loading | PACM | Poland |
| Francesc Verdugo | Error assessment and adaptivity for structural transient dynamics | SEMNI | Spain |
| Babak Hejazialhossein | High performance computing for multiresolution simulations of compressible flows | SWICCOMAS | Switzerland |