Prof. François Avellan, director of the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, graduated in Hydraulic Engineering from Ecole nationale supérieure d'hydraulique, Institut national polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in 1977 and, in 1980, got his doctoral degree in engineering from University of Aix-Marseille II, France. Research associate at EPFL in 1980, he is director of the EPFL Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines since 1994 and, in 2003, was appointed Ordinary Professor in Hydraulic Machinery. Supervising 37 EPFL doctoral theses, he was distinguished by SHF, Société hydrotechnique de France, awarding him the "Grand Prix 2010 de l'hydrotechnique". His main research domains of interests are hydrodynamics of turbine, pump and pump-turbines including cavitation, hydro-acoustics, design, performance and operation assessments of hydraulic machines. Prof. Avellan was Chairman of the IAHR Section on Hydraulic Machinery and Systems from 2002 to 2012. He has conducted successfully several Swiss and international collaborative research projects, involving key hydropower operators and suppliers, such as:
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Coordination for the FP7 European project n° 608532 "HYPERBOLE: HYdropower plants PERformance and flexiBle Operation towards Lean integration of new renewable Energies" (2013-2017);
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Deputy Head of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research – Supply of Electricity (SCCER-SoE) to carry out innovative and sustainable research in the areas of geo-energy and hydropower for phase I (2013-2016) and Phase II (2017, 2010) to be approved.
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EUREKA European research projects: N° 4150 and N° 3246, "HYDRODYNA, Harnessing the dynamic behavior of pump-turbines", (2003-2011), N° 1605, "FLINDT, Flow Investigation in Draft Tubes", http://flindt.epfl.ch/, (1997-2002). N° 2418, "SCAPIN, Stability of Operation of Francis turbines, prediction and modeling";
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Swiss KTI/CTI research projects with GE Renewable Energy (anc. ALSTOM Hydro), Birr, ANDRITZ Hydro, Kriens, FMV, Sion, Groupe E, Granges-Paccot, Power Vision engineering, Ecublens and SULZER Pumps, Winterthur.
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ETH Domain, HYDRONET Project for the Competence Center Energy and Mobility, PSI Villingen.
Furthermore, he is involved in scientific expertise and independent contractual experimental validations of turbines and pump turbines performances for the main hydropower plants in the world. In recognition for his work as Convenor of the TC4 working group of experts in editing the IEC 60193 standard he received the "IEC 1906 Award" from the International Electrotechnical Commission. M. Farhat was born in Casablanca in 1962 (Moroccan citizen). He graduated at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Hydraulique et de Mécanique de Grenoble (France. He joined The LMH laboratory in 1986 as research assistant. He completed in 1994 a Ph.D. thesis on Cavitation. He joined the R&D department of Hydro-Quebec in Montréal (Canada) in 1995 where he was in charge of several research projects in the areas of production and transportation of hydropower and mainly the monitoring of large hydro turbines. Since 2001, he is senior scientist at the LMH laboratory, head of the cavitation group. He is also lecturer in Master and Doctoral programs. He is member of the Doctoral Committee in Mechanics.
After obtaining his diploma in mechanical engineering from EPFL in 1999 he co-founded a start-up company dedicated to the design of gas bearing supported rotors. In 2005 he joined Fischer Engineering Solutions where he led the development of small-scale, gas bearing supported high-speed turbomachinery for fuel cell air supplies and for domestic scale heat pumps. In parallel he worked on his PhD, which he obtained from EPFL in 2008 and for which he was awarded the SwissElectric Research Award. He then joined the Gas Turbine Lab at MIT as a postdoctoral associate where he worked on foil bearings and on the experimental investigation of radial diffusers. In 2013 he was nominated assistant professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he founds the Laboratory for Applied Mechanical Design. His current research interest are in gas lubricated bearings, in aerodynamics of small-scale compressors and turbines and in automated design and optimization methodologies.
Daniel Favrat got his Master degree in Mechanical Engineering from EPFL in 1972 and his PhD also from EPFL. He then spent 12 years in industrial research laboratories in Canada (Esso Canada) and Switzerland (CERAC: Centre Européen de Recherche Atlas Copco). From 1988 to 2013, he was full professor and director of the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) at EPFL. During that period he was successively director of the Institute of Energy and director of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. From August 2013 he works at EPFL Energy Center first as director ad interim and now as director technologies.
His research fields include systemic analyses accounting for energy, environment and economics (so-called environomic optimisation) and advanced conversion systems for a more rational use of energy (heat pumps &ORC, engines, fuel cells, power plants, etc).
He is a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and of the National Academy of Technology in France. He has also an active participation in the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) as a member of the executive committee and vice-chair of the energy committee. He is associate editor of the journal "Energy" and of International Journal of thermodynamics. He is the author of several books on thermodynamics and energy systems analysis. He is also affiliate professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.
Luc Thévenaz received in 1982 the M.Sc. degree in astrophysics from the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland, and in 1988 the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He developed at this moment his field of expertise, i.e. fibre optics. In 1988 he joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL) where he currently leads a research group involved in photonics, namely fibre optics and optical sensing. Research topics include Brillouin-scattering fibre sensors, nonlinear fibre optics, slow & fast light and laser spectroscopy in gases. His main achievements are: - the invention of a novel configuration for distributed Brillouin fibre sensing based on a single laser source, resulting in a high intrinsic stability making for the first time field measurements possible, - the development of a photoacoustic gas trace sensor using a near infra-red semiconductor laser, detecting a gas concentration at the ppb level, - the first experimental demonstration of optically-controlled slow & fast light in optical fibres, realized at ambient temperature and operating at any wavelength since based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. The first negative group velocity of light was also realized in optical fibres using this approach. In 1991, he visited the PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he worked on the generation of picosecond pulses in semiconductor lasers. In 1991-1992 he stayed at Stanford University, USA, where he participated in the development of a Brillouin laser gyroscope. He joined in 1998 the company Orbisphere Laboratories SA in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as Expert Scientist to develop gas trace sensors based on photoacoustic laser spectroscopy. In 1998 and 1999 he visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejon, South Korea, where he worked on fibre laser current sensors. In 2000 he co-founded the spin-off company Omnisens that is developing and commercializing advanced photonic instrumentation. In 2007 he visited Tel Aviv University where he studied the all-optical control of polarization in optical fibres. During winter 2010 he stayed at the University of Sydney where he studied applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering in chalcogenide waveguides. In 2014 he stayed at the Polytechnic University of Valencia where he worked on microwave applications of stimulated Brillouin scattering. He was member of the Consortium in the FP7 European Project GOSPEL "Governing the speed of light", was Chairman of the European COST Action 299 "FIDES: Optical Fibres for New Challenges Facing the Information Society" and is author or co-author of some 480 publications and 12 patents. He is now Coordinator of the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks FINESSE (FIbre NErve Systems for Sensing). He is co-Executive Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Nature Light: Science & Applications" and is Member of the Editorial Board (Associate Editor) for the journal "APL Photonics" & "Laser & Photonics Reviews". He is also Fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society (OSA).
John R. Thome is Professor of Heat and Mass Transfer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland since 1998, where his primary interests of research are two-phase flow and heat transfer, covering both macro-scale and micro-scale heat transfer and enhanced heat transfer. He directs the Laboratory of Heat and Mass Transfer (LTCM) at the EPFL with a research staff of about 18-20 and is also Director of the Doctoral School in Energy. He received his Ph.D. at Oxford University, England in 1978. He is the author of four books: Enhanced Boiling Heat Transfer (1990), Convective Boiling and Condensation, 3rd Edition (1994), Wolverine Engineering Databook III (2004) and Nucleate Boiling on Micro-Structured Surfaces (2008). He received the ASME Heat Transfer Division's Best Paper Award in 1998 for a 3-part paper on two-phase flow and flow boiling heat transfer published in the Journal of Heat Transfer. He has received the J&E Hall Gold Medal from the U.K. Institute of Refrigeration in February, 2008 for his extensive research contributions on refrigeration heat transfer and more recently the 2010 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award. He has published widely on the fundamental aspects of microscale and macroscale two-phase flow and heat transfer and on enhanced boiling and condensation heat transfer.
Prof. Camille-Sophie Brès is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering within the School of Engineering of EPFL. Her primary research interests are centered optical communications and on parametric and nonlinear processes in optical fiber and non-silica platforms for ultrafast signal processing, all optical networks, sensing and light sources. She has authored over thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and has presented more than 15 papers at international conferences. She received the Gordon Wu Fellowship for her graduate studies, the NSF CIANs Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2009, the Early Career Woman in Engineering Award in 2016. She is a senior member of the IEEE and OSA. 2019 - present: Associate Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering, EPFL 2011 - 2018: Assistant Professor in the Institute of Electrical Engineering, EPFL 2010 - 2011: Assistant Project Scientist, University of California San Diego (UCSD) 2007 - 2010: Postdoc in ECE, University of California San Diego (UCSD) 2002 - 2007: Ph.D in Electrical Engineering, Princeton University 1998 - 2002: B.Eng with Honours in Electrical Engineering, McGill University
Ph D. in engineering Chemical process engineer
Researcher and lecturer in the field of computer aided process and energy systems engineering.
Lecturer in the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and environmental sciences engineering in EPFL.
I'm responsible for the Minor in Energy of EPFL and I'm involved in 3 projects of the Competence Center in Energy and Mobility (2nd generation biofuel, Wood SOFC, and gas turbine development with CO2 mitigation) in which i'm contributing to the energy conversion system design and optimisation.
Short summary of my scientific carrer
After a graduation in chemical engineering from the University of Liège, I have obtained a Ph. D. from the University of Liège in the LASSC laboratory of Prof. Kalitventzeff (former president of the European working party on computer aided process engineering). This laboratory was one of the pioneering laboratory in the field of Computer Aided Process Engineering.
In the group of Professor Kalitventzeff, I have worked on the development and the applications of data reconciliation, process modelling and optimisation techniques in the chemical process industry, my experience ranges from nuclear power stations to chemical plants. In the LASSC, I have been responsible from the developments in the field of rational use of energy in the industry. My first research topic has been the methodological development of process integration techniques, combining the use of pinch based methods and of mathematical programming: e.g. for the design of multiperiod heat exchanger networks or Mixed integer non linear programming techniques for the optimal management of utility systems. Fronted with applications in the industry, my work then mainly concentrated on the optimal integration of utility systems considering not only the energy requirements but the cost of the energy requirements and the energy conversion systems. I developed methods for analysing and integrating the utility system, the steam networks, combustion (including waste fuel), gas turbines or other advanced energy conversion systems (cogeneration, refrigeration and heat). The techniques applied uses operation research tools like mixed integer linear programming and exergy analysis. In order to evaluate the results of the utility integration, a new graphical method for representing the integration of the utility systems has been developed. By the use of MILP techniques, the method developed for the utility integration has been extended to handled site scale problems, to incorporate environmental constraints and reduce the water usage. This method (the Effect Modelling and Optimisation method) has been successfully applied to the chemical plants industry, the pulp and paper industry and the power plant. Instead of focusing on academic problems, I mainly developed my research based on industrial applications that lead to valuable and applicable patented results. Recently the methods developed have been extended to realise the thermoeconomic optimisation of integrated systems like fuel cells. My present R&D work concerns the application of multi-objective optimisation strategies in the design of processes and integrated energy conversion systems.
Since 2001, Im working in the Industrial Energy Systems Laboratory (LENI) of Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where Im leading the R&D activities in the field of Computer Aided Analysis and Design of Industrial Energy Systems with a major focus on sustainable energy conversion system development using thermo-economic optimisation methodologies. A part from the application and the development of process integration techniques, that remains my major field of expertise, the applications concern :
Rational use of water and energy in Industrial processes and industrial production sites : projects with NESTLE, EDF, VEOLIA and Borregaard (pulp and paper).Energy conversion and process design : biofuels from waste biomass (with GASNAT, EGO and PSI), water dessalination and waste water treatment plant (VEOLIA), power plant design (ALSTOM), Energy conversion from geothermal sources (BFE). Integrated energy systems in urban areas : together with SCANE and SIG (GE) and IEA annexe 42 for micro-cogeneration systems.
I as well contributed to the definition of the 2000 Watt society and to studies concerning the emergence of green technologies on the market in the frame of the Alliance for Global Sustainability.
