Numerical methods and optimization

In urban zones, road traffic is responsible for a high proportion of pollutant emissions, with a significant impact on air quality, which represents a major public health issue. Atmospheric dispersion can be comprehensively taken into account using CFD. However, random uncertainties, of both natural and anthropogenic origin, can affect its predictive capacity. Concerning this prediction, the PhD research was aimed at quantitatively evaluating the impact of uncertain parameters: firstly, meteorological and, secondly, those related to road traffic. To do this, “high-fidelity” simulations of pollution dispersion on a micro-urban scale (neighborhood) were conducted...

IFPEN is a global leader in the development of fossil feedstocks hydrotreatinga for clean fuel production. Processes from the same family now apply to a broader diversity of feedstocks: plastic and tire pyrolysis oil, in the context of chemical recycling, vegetable oils for biofuel production, etc. For these processes themselves to be eco-efficientb, beyond the targeted environmental benefit, their operating conditions need to be optimized by the use of kinetic or hybrid modelsc, as a function of the feedstocks employed and the specifications sought for the target products...

In the energy and chemicals sectors, the conversion of raw materials into finished or semi-finished products is conducted via a succession of processes in dedicated units. Each of these processes comprises input conversion steps and output separation steps. In an industrial context where the focus is on optimizing the use of resources and reducing the environmental footprint, the capacity to redefine and optimize the arrangement of units appeared essential at IFPEN. So its teams developed a tool for the purpose.

Urban road traffic is a significant source of pollutant emissions that impacts air quality. Being able to predict the dispersion of these emissions is of major importance for evaluating real exposure and planning traffic flows. To this end, a PhD research project proposed a modeling chain making it possible to simulate highly turbulent flows on a local urban scale and obtain two-dimensional spatial maps of pollutant concentration...

In the field of wind energy, Large Eddy Simulations (LES) are widely used to gain a better understanding of wind flow within wind farms. On a wind farm scale, they are also used to establish analytical wake models, and are useful for studying the interactions between individual wind turbines as well as with the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL)...

Driven by environmental and energy frugality challenges, there is growing interest in vehicle fuel efficiency and a reduction in the impact of mobility. While the promotion of alternative transport modes to cars remains the principal lever for change, much can still be done in terms of road traffic management. An IFPEN team worked on this subject as part of a thesis in collaboration with Gipsa-lab...

Inside porous materials, physico-chemical phenomena such as matter transport, catalytic reactions and capillary effects are strongly influenced by the geometry of the pore networks, i.e., the degree of porosity, the distribution of pore sizes and their connectivity. (....) IFPEN and Saint Gobain Research Provence decided to tackle the problem differently, by exploring a new numerical approach...

Transport of molecules within porous structures that adsorb on the surfaces plays an important role in numerous contexts and very different applications. These include pollutant transport in soils, industrial catalytic conversion and purification processes, and chromatographic techniques...

Anchor lines, the majority of which are carbon steel cables, are essential components for the stability of offshore floating structures, such as those supporting wind turbines. To overcome the risk of breakage during service, redundant lines are generally incorporated at the design stage, which adds significantly to the cost...