Doctoral School

Reading date: 07/09/2026

• GONÇALVES JUNIOR, LUIS ANTONIO: Modeling the influence of manufacturing processes on the fatigue behavior of metallic materials through a continuum damage-based constitutive framework
  
  Author: GONÇALVES JUNIOR, LUIS ANTONIO
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
  Department: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DECA)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 29/06/2026
  Reading date: 07/09/2026
  Reading time: 14:00
  Reading place: Sala Zienkiewich (CIMNE) Building C1, UPC - Campus North Gran Capitan S/N 08034 Barcelona
  Thesis director: BARBU, LUCIA GRATIELA | OLLER MARTINEZ, SERGIO HORACIO
  Thesis abstract: Since the mid-19th century, the study of fatigue in metals has become a major field of interest for materials scientists and structural engineers because fatigue represents one of the principal failure mechanisms in metallic engineering structures. Initially based on empirical approaches such as the stress amplitude–life (S–N) curves derived from Wöhler’s pioneering studies, fatigue prediction capabilities have evolved significantly, leading to sophisticated numerical models capable of predicting not only fatigue life but also the progressive degradation of material properties associated with the fatigue phenomenon, including crack initiation and propagation up to the complete failure of the component.Despite these advances, the systematic incorporation of manufacturing process effects —such as machining, forming, trimming, and punching— into fatigue formulations remains limited. Most existing approaches still rely on simple modifications of S–N curves through reduction factors, restricting their applicability mainly to coupon-level specimens and preventing the accurate prediction of crack initiation and propagation patterns.In this context, the present thesis proposes a constitutive framework to incorporate manufacturing-induced effects into the fatigue response of metals in the high-cycle regime. The model is formulated in a general manner, allowing different manufacturing processes to be considered through suitable specializations based on relevant process-related data, such as residual stresses, surface roughness, porosity, and defect volume fraction.To develop this framework, several fatigue modeling approaches are reviewed, with particular emphasis on fracture mechanics, continuum damage mechanics, and phase-field formulations, commonly implemented using numerical methods such as the finite element method and the extended finite element method. Among them, a continuum damage mechanics-based high-cycle fatigue model is selected as the baseline framework due to its high computational efficiency and its ability to model complex stress–strain states throughout the material degradation process, from the intact condition to complete failure.The constitutive framework is first enhanced through the introduction of a novel hardening–softening stress–strain curve for damage. In addition, a methodology to convert average-based S–N data obtained from standardized fatigue tests into local material-point information is proposed to ensure a consistent calibration of the fatigue parameters with the local nature of the formulation. The enhanced model is validated against experimental data from stiffness-based rapid fatigue tests and durability tests performed on real automotive components, demonstrating strong predictive capabilities at both coupon and component levels while maintaining high computational efficiency.Finally, the framework is extended to explicitly account for manufacturing-induced effects. A residual stress relaxation model and a formulation to account for notch effects associated with manufacturing operations are introduced. The resulting model is specialized for shear-cutting operations, such as trimming and punching, using residual stresses obtained from process simulations and measured surface roughness as process-related inputs. The formulation is validated against uniaxial fatigue tests performed on trimmed and punched complex-phase steel specimens, demonstrating its ability to accurately predict fatigue life and crack initiation locations.
  

• PINILLA SANCHEZ, ADRIAN: Advanced Catalytic Interface Analysis Through In Situ Studies and Automated Experimental Platforms
  
  Author: PINILLA SANCHEZ, ADRIAN
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN PHOTONICS
  Department: Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 08/07/2026
  Reading date: 07/09/2026
  Reading time: 15:00
  Reading place: ICFO Auditorium i https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/393968795433086?p=iOTHwY4gw6m1ZfoLbp
  Thesis director: GARCÍA DE ARQUER, FRANCISCO PELAYO
  Thesis abstract: Electrochemical technologies offer a route to decarbonize key industries, such as energy, chemical and fertilizer manufacturing, by converting abundant chemicals like carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrate into fuels and feedstocks using renewable electricity. Realizing this potential requires electrocatalytic systems that achieve technoeconomic viability, which is linked to performance metrics such as activity, selectivity, and stability. Their deployment is constrained by two coupled challenges: incomplete mechanistic understanding of dynamic electrochemical interfaces and slow manual workflows that cannot efficiently explore the high-dimensional design spaces of catalysts, electrolytes, and operating parameters. In electrochemical reactions, performance across its many dimensions emerges from the evolving interplay of catalyst structure and local reaction environment at polarized interfaces. Advancing electrocatalytic performance therefore requires tools that can both reveal and enable control over the evolving catalyst-electrolyte interface during operation. This thesis addresses these challenges by combining operando surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), automated data-analysis frameworks, and self-driving laboratory approaches to accelerate electrocatalyst development under technologically relevant conditions for CO₂ and nitrate electroreduction reactions.Operando SERS probes acidic CO₂ electroreduction on copper-based gas diffusion electrodes up to 0.2 A cm⁻², showing how interfacial species like sulfate, hydroxide, carbon monoxide (CO), and carbon-containing intermediates evolve with potential and pH. Our findings suggest that strongly adsorbed sulfate blocks active sites and delays CO₂E onset at low overpotentials, while co-adsorbed hydroxide and carbon on reconstructed copper surfaces stabilize *CO coverages that favor C-C coupling and multicarbon product formation. These results identify electrolyte anions and local alkalization as key levers for tuning the onset potential, intermediate stabilization, and selectivity in acidic CO₂ electroreduction, opening new strategies for rational system-level design of catalysts and electrolytes.To handle the complexity of operando experiments, the thesis introduces SERSFlow, a modular framework for structured operando SERS data and reusable analysis pipelines. Implemented as a local-first Python service with a web interface, it combines preprocessing, feature extraction, and multivariate analysis in deterministic workflows that reproduce expert trends while reducing analysis time from hours to minutes. Benchmarking shows that baseline subtraction alone can shift fitted peak areas by 40–100% for weak or overlapping bands, and spatiotemporal mapping reveals micron-scale heterogeneity in adsorbate populations and double-layer structure.Finally, the Autoammonia platform—a distributed self-driving laboratory for nitrate-to-ammonia reduction—is developed with two active nodes in different institutions. It integrates in situ catalyst electrodeposition, flow-cell nitrate electroreduction, and automated ammonia quantification within a closed-loop workflow managed by orchestration, planning, and safety software. Autonomous campaigns with copper-based catalysts show that self-driving experimentation is feasible in realistic flow-cell architectures and complex electrolytes using accessible hardware and open-source software.Collectively, the thesis shows that mechanistic operando characterization, reproducible data workflows, and autonomous experimentation are mutually reinforcing components of a coherent strategy for advancing electrocatalysis. The concepts and tools developed here provide a foundation for more systematic, data-rich, and scalable approaches to the design and optimization of electrocatalysts and electrochemical interfaces for sustainable, electrified chemical production.
  

• RIVERA TORRES, PEDRO JUAN: Complex Engineering Systems: Expanding the Bioengineering Toolset with Biomimetic and Complexity Science-Based Solutions to Engineering Problems.
  
  Author: RIVERA TORRES, PEDRO JUAN
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Automatic Control (ESAII)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Deposit date: 13/07/2026
  Reading date: pending
  Reading time: pending
  Reading place: pending
  Thesis director: KANAAN IZQUIERDO, SAMIR
  Thesis abstract: This dissertation will seek to expand the toolset available for the solution of problems in engineering using probabilistic Boolean networks (PBN), a modeling methodology used mainly for analyzing Gene Regulatory Networks (GRN). Its purpose is validating their benefits as mechanisms of problem solving in engineering; general machine learning, reinforcement learning and fault detection and isolation in generation and transmission/distribution of electrical power and in manufacturing systems. The use of PBNs has been validated before as a mechanism of modeling of manufacturing processes and smart power. Modeling of systems using PBNs allows to construct models of multiple systems, know their respective failure modes, and incrementing their robustness using reinforcement learning to predictively react to faults and failures. We present the use of PBNs as a model constructing mechanism to determine the reliability of engineered systems and processes, and control of their evolution using machine learning. These models will enable us to study the mechanics of failure in engineered systems, making them more robust. We also present a Learning Probabilistic Boolean Network model of a manufacturing system and a Smart-grid system that can learn to preserve a healthy system state, in a way inspired by Artificial Neural Networks, but without the training that these systems require, and allowing the system to avoid faults and failures.
  

Reading date: 08/09/2026

• BELLAFIORE, GASPARE: Résidence Le Parc à Meudon-la-Forêt. Tectónica y decoro urbano en la obra de Fernand Pouillon.
  
  Author: BELLAFIORE, GASPARE
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
  Department: Department of Architectural Design (PA)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 13/07/2026
  Reading date: pending
  Reading time: pending
  Reading place: pending
  Thesis director: PEÑIN LLOBELL, ALBERTO
  Thesis abstract: This research examines the relationship between compositional procedures and construction methods in the architecture of Fernand Pouillon, taking the complex of Résidence Le Parc in Meudon-la-Forêt (1959-1962) as a paradigmatic case study. The study begins with a diagnosis of the condition of contemporary architecture, marked by a growing fracture between the act of designing and the act of building. It notes a drift toward a production that entrusts its expressiveness to the image, the authorial gesture, or technical sophistication rather than to the internal reasons of the work. Faced with this displacement, the research recovers the concept of tectonics—not as a stylistic category or a synonym for technicality, but as the syntax through which construction becomes architectural language. It argues that Pouillon's work in Meudon-la-Forêt constitutes a privileged material verification of this hypothesis. The theoretical framework articulates two critical traditions often treated separately: Anglo-Germanic tectonic analysis (Bötticher, Semper, Sekler, Frampton) and the Latin theory of analogical decorum developed in France by Quatremère de Quincy and Julien Guadet. The research argues that a conjunction of both is necessary to read Pouillon's work, reconstructing the genealogy of French constructive rationalism—from Philibert de l'Orme to Auguste Perret—as the cultural horizon that makes his choices intelligible. In this reading, Pouillon emerges not as an exception within post-war modernity, but as a "transformative continuator": an architect who reactivates the French classical tradition and translates it to the operational conditions of reconstruction and mass social housing. The work is structured into three parts. The first reconstructs the theoretical framework of tectonics. The second traces the cultural genealogy of Pouillon's thought and analyses the operational context of post-war Paris. The third part develops a multiscalar analysis of Résidence Le Parc, covering the problems of the framed wall, stone as a tectonic and ethical core, the travée as a device of order. The study reaches four main theses:First: The hybrid construction system of Meudon—load-bearing Fontvieille stone articulated with reinforced concrete slabs—is not a technical compromise, but a new tectonic synthesis that reactivates the logic of load-bearing mass under conditions of industrial prefabrication. Second: The travée functions in Meudon as a "total operator" of the project, simultaneously coordinating construction logic, facade composition, and interior spatial organization, extending to the urban scale as the rhythm of public space. Third: Decorum in Pouillon does not respond to the strict truth of the Perretian frame, but to a "lithic verisimilitude" (vraisemblance)—an expressive adequacy between form, construction, and civic character—that reformulates Quatremère’s principle of analogical decorum for modern conditions. Fourth: The civic dimension of the work is not an ethical supplement added to formal decisions, but the direct effect of the construction grammar itself assumed as a shared language. The research is based on specialized critical bibliography (Lucan, Bonillo, Ferlenga, Sayen), primary sources from Pouillon’s archives, heritage documentation from the French Ministry of Culture, and direct measurements taken in the municipal archives of Meudon-la-Forêt. Its main contribution consists of articulating tectonic analysis and the theory of decorum within a single analytical device, proposing a systematic reading of the travée as the syntactic atom of the project, and defending the relevance of Pouillon’s lithic lesson for the contemporary debate on civic architecture and collective housing.
  

• MONTERO VEGA, MARIANA: Joint Operations of Autonomous Delivery Robots and Mobile Micro Hubs: A Continuous-Approximation and Game-Theoretic Assessment for Urban E-Commerce Logistics
  
  Author: MONTERO VEGA, MARIANA
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN CIVIL ENGINEERING
  Department: Barcelona School of Civil Engineering (ETSECCPB)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Deposit date: 03/07/2026
  Reading date: 08/09/2026
  Reading time: 11:00
  Reading place: UPC Campus Nord, ETSECCPB, C/ Jordi Girona 1-3, edific C2, Sala 212 (Sala Conferències), Barcelona
  Thesis director: ESTRADA ROMEU, MIGUEL ANGEL
  Thesis abstract: Last-mile logistics is one of the most resource-intensive and externality-generating segments of urban freight systems, yet market forces consistently fail to align private incentives with social objectives. This thesis investigates the conditions under which Autonomous Delivery Robots can serve as a catalyst for a more sustainable and equitable urban logistics paradigm, examining the problem through the Desirability-Feasibility-Viability framework across four interconnected studies.On the desirability side, a global survey of 1,344 e-commerce users across Europe, Asia, and North America reveals that acceptance of ADRs is real but structurally uneven. Socio-demographic factors, particularly gender, age, and urbanity shapes delivery preferences in ways that have direct implications for infrastructure design and deployment strategy. Parcel lockers emerge as the most preferred delivery modality globally, a finding that motivates their inclusion as a full market participant in the subsequent viability analysis. A multi-regional acceptance study combining structural equation models with an ordered logit model identifies perceived competence as the central mediating variable driving behavioral intention across all regions, while revealing that risk sensitivity and price barriers are significant only in markets where ADRs have not yet achieved commercial deployment. On the feasibility side, the moving micro hub (MMH) concept, a two-echelon system combining Autonomous Hub Vehicles with ADRs is introduced and evaluated through a continuous approximation model across multiple urban demand scenarios. The system reduces delivery costs by 40–55% relative to business-as-usual (BaU) while significantly lowering global warming potential, with ADR body capacity emerging as the dominant cost lever and operational speed as essentially irrelevant. User-derived design constraints from the desirability studies including robot height preferences, multi-compartment design, and off-peak delivery windows are incorporated directly as operational parameters, establishing a quantitative link between stated user preferences and system cost structure.On the viability side, a two-stage game-theoretic model demonstrates that cooperation among business-as-usual, moving micro hub, and parcel locker operators never emerges endogenously under market conditions: the ε-core is strictly positive across all Monte Carlo simulations when there is little to no taxation , establishing that public subsidy is a structural necessity rather than a transitional feature. A Stackelberg regulatory layer shows that Pigovian and diversified tax schemes achieve near-subsidy-free coalition stability at substantially lower fiscal effort than flat entry tolls, while producing fairer profit distributions and maintaining the viability of all three operators. Critically, the minimum subsidy required is shown to be substantially smaller than the monetized externality savings generated by the demand shift toward cleaner technologies, reframing public investment in coalition support as a fiscally efficient instrument for urban sustainability rather than a transfer to private operators. Taken together, the findings establish that the future of last-mile logistics will not be decided by technology alone. ADRs are operationally viable and environmentally beneficial, but their transformative potential depends on the willingness of regulators to price externalities, of system designers to align operational parameters with real user needs, and of policymakers to accept that stable cooperation among heterogeneous operators is a governance achievement, not a market outcome.