Doctoral School

Reading date: 12/12/2025

• CASADO GÓMEZ, JAIME: 3D Printable Hybrid Acrylate-Epoxy Vitrimer Resins with Improved Compatibility and Reprocessability
  
  Author: CASADO GÓMEZ, JAIME
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN POLYMERS AND BIOPOLYMERS
  Department: Department of Chemical Engineering (EQ)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Deposit date: 21/10/2025
  Reading date: 12/12/2025
  Reading time: 11:00
  Reading place: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB)Campus Diagonal SudAv. Diagonal, 647 08028Edifici I, Planta 1Aula 28.8
  Thesis director: FERNANDEZ FRANCOS, XAVIER | KONURAY, ALI OSMAN
  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: JIMÉNEZ SUÁREZ, ALBERTO
       SECRETARI: ARMELIN DIGGROC, ELAINE APARECIDA
       VOCAL: MONTANÉ MONTANÉ, XAVIER
  Thesis abstract: The Covalent Adaptable Networks (CANs) made of polymeric materials that use dynamic covalent chemistry, allowing bonds to break and reform when stimulated, combine the mechanical properties of thermoset polymers with the ability to be reprocessed and recycled. The integration of 3D printing technology with CANs represents a significant advancement in the field of manufacturing polymer components. This innovative process offers the functional benefits of a thermoset along with the recycling advantages of a thermoplastic, making it a highly sustainable solution.In the following collection of articles, a group of novel dual-curing thermosetting materials have been designed, optimised and improved regarding their compatibility and reprocessability. In the first article, we successfully crafted four genuine resins and explored how their behaviour and properties were influenced by the unique combinations and proportions of their formulation ingredients. The original dual-curing system was performed by means of homogenously mixing an epoxy resin with a di-acrylate monomer rich in β-hydroxy ester and hydroxyls, a dicarboxylic acid and a coupling agent in a fixed proportion. The use of different transesterification catalysts in varying proportions, a methacrylate monomer and a photoinitiator round off the formulation. The combination of these chemicals results in the formation of a hybrid network, which is capable of undergoing transesterifications reactions. The 3D-printed and fully-cured parts from these four innovative resins have proven that their thermo-mechanical properties are in line with the designed specifications. Their repair and recycle capabilities are facilitated by a CAN structure.In the second article, we have optimised the formulations of 3D printable vitrimer resins with the objective of enhancing their processing, mechanical properties, and repairability/reprocessability. An improvement of the formulation was achieved through the determination of the optimal quantities of acrylates and coupling agent. A selection of epoxy resins was also made with the aim of identifying the best performing option. The resins developed in this part of the research have offered a more suitable viscosity for handling in the 3D printer. It has been demonstrated as well that parts printed from these improved resins and subsequently double-cured have shown an enhancement in their thermo-mechanical behaviour.In the third article, we have advanced our research in two key areas. Firstly, we have taken a further step in the facilitation of the Vitrimer formulation elaboration by improving the mixability of the chemical compounds. This improvement involved replacing a powder carboxylic acid with a taylor-made liquid coupling agent.Secondly, an evaluation of the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the fully cured resin was carried out, depending on the sequence of thermal and UV curing stages. The materials developed in this study have demonstrated efficacy in the effective relaxation of internal stresses, attributable to the high dynamic β-hydroxyester groups content. Consequently, processes such as reshaping, repairing, or complete recycling are enabled. Furthermore, modifications made to the resin formulations enabled the production of thermosets with customised mechanical properties. All these properties offer new possibilities for the production of parts using techniques such as 3D printing and thermal post-curing, providing a viable, sustainable and more convenient alternative for the thermosetting materials industry.
  

• POSADA CÁRCAMO, HÉCTOR JOSÉ: Digital Twins for Concrete Building Construction Processes
  
  Author: POSADA CÁRCAMO, HÉCTOR JOSÉ
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DECA)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 12/11/2025
  Reading date: 12/12/2025
  Reading time: 11:00
  Reading place: C1-002
  Thesis director: CHACÓN FLORES, ROLANDO ANTONIO
  Thesis abstract: This dissertation primarily investigates the use of Digital Twin (DT) technology to enhance construction management in concrete buildings, offering an end-to-end analysis of related workflows, tools, and frameworks. It contributes to the academic field by addressing identified research challenges and supporting the advancement of DT technology both theoretically and practically.The dissertation explores the foundational concepts underpinning DTs, providing a review of their conceptual development and evolution in recent years within the construction industry. It identifies and elaborates on key technological enablers crucial to this research: i) OpenBIM (IFC standard), ii) Computational Design, iii) Internet of Things (IoT), iv) knowledge graph databases, and v) human-twin interfaces (DT platforms). Particular attention is given to the current state and challenges of integrating structural analysis into DT frameworks. A real-world case study anchors the research: the construction of a concrete office building. Through this empirical approach, six twinning information pipelines were developed, aiming to establish data flow from construction site measurements to actionable insights. These pipelines were crucial for identifying four research challenges addressed in this research: A) How can multi-layered information related to concrete construction be generated, prepared, and streamlined while ensuring accuracy and interoperability for DTs? B) What roles and workflows should stakeholders adopt to enable coordinated DT implementation? C) How can structural analysis be effectively integrated into DT systems in a scalable and interoperable manner? D) What kind of system architecture can unify diverse data layers and information pipelines to support right-time, data-driven decision-making?Research challenge A is addressed through a software development: MatchFEM. Conceived as a plugin within a computational design tool, MatchFEM streamlines the often fragmented processes of 4D IFC-BIM modeling, IoT data integration, and structural analysis by unifying them within a single parametric environment. The plugin follows a visual programming paradigm, thus simplifying the generation and preparation of DT data.The second research challenge encompasses a general mind map and two complementary workflows. They delineate the essential job roles involved in the creation and operation of DTs during building construction. Moreover, a conceptual framework for the emerging role of the DT Manager is proposed, highlighting their importance in coordinating and overseeing all DT-related activities.Furthermore, to bridge the gap between structural analysis and DT ecosystems, research challenge C, two novel data models are introduced: O-SAM (Open Structural Analysis Models), a JSON schema for encoding and transferring structural simulation data via web-based platforms, and SSO (Structural Simulation Ontology), an ontology designed to represent O-SAM data as a graph, enabling its integration within knowledge graph-based DTs.To knit all these proposals, a comprehensive DT system connected to real-time structural simulations during concrete construction is presented. This system addresses research challenge D and consolidates the knowledge, tools, and frameworks developed throughout the dissertation. The implementation of knowledge graphs as a central linking framework is emphasized, alongside the development of a human-twin interface that delivers Performance Indicators to Construction Managers. The system is validated through a prototype implementation, which incorporates an exemplary construction management workflow: the Maturity Method for concrete slabs.The dissertation concludes by reflecting on findings and contributions to the field, discussing limitations encountered, and outlining avenues for future research, envisioning DTs as data-driven assistants that enhance productivity and sustainability in the construction sector.
  

• TUGORES GARCIAS, JUAN: Adaptive optimization of ventilation in educational buildings using grey box models
  
  Author: TUGORES GARCIAS, JUAN
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DECA)
  Mode: Article-based thesis
  Deposit date: 19/11/2025
  Reading date: 12/12/2025
  Reading time: 11:00
  Reading place: Terrassa UPC campus. Sala de conferències TR5
  Thesis director: MACARULLA MARTÍ, MARCEL | GANGOLELLS SOLANELLAS, MARTA
  Thesis abstract: Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a fundamental determinant of healthy and productive indoor environments, particularly in educational buildings where poor ventilation can impair cognitive performance, increase absenteeism and elevate the risk of airborne disease transmission. In Mediterranean regions, most schools still rely on natural ventilation owing to mild climates and historically low energy demands. However, its effectiveness is strongly influenced by occupant behaviour and weather variability, often leading to inconsistent airflow and thermal discomfort. Conversely, conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems ensure stable IAQ and thermal conditions but consume between 40 to 60% of total building energy, posing a persistent challenge in balancing health protection, comfort, and energy efficiency.This doctoral research addresses this challenge by developing an integrated methodology that combines long-term field monitoring, grey box modelling and adaptive model predictive control (MPC). The overarching goal is to optimize ventilation systems that maintain adequate IAQ and thermal comfort, minimise energy use and mitigate airborne infection risks in educational buildings. The research follows a structured four-stage approach: (i) empirical characterisation of IAQ dynamics, (ii) dynamic airborne infection risk assessment, (iii) coupled IAQ–thermal grey box modelling and (iv) implementation of an adaptive MPC algorithm for multi-objective optimisation.A large-scale monitoring campaign conducted in 32 classrooms across Catalonia provided the empirical foundation to estimate children’s CO₂ generation rates and natural ventilation airflows. Grey box models successfully reproduced indoor CO₂ dynamics in 72% of the studied classrooms, capturing behavioural variability in window operation and enabling realistic estimation of emission and airflow parameters. Embedding these models into a dynamic Wells–Riley formulation enabled time-resolved airborne infection risk assessment, revealing that transient ventilation absences could increase accumulative infection probability by up to 26% compared with steady-state assumptions, highlighting the need for dynamic, health-centred building management.Subsequently, a hybrid grey box model coupling IAQ and thermal dynamics was developed by explicitly incorporating ventilation-driven convective heat fluxes. This approach reduced indoor temperature and prediction CO₂ errors and stabilised thermal parameter estimation, providing a computationally efficient framework suitable for real-time HVAC control. Finally, an adaptive MPC algorithm integrating the coupled model was tested in a living-lab setting. Compared with conventional rule-based control, the MPC reduced HVAC energy demand by 38%, maintained IAQ and thermal comfort within recommended thresholds, and kept infection-risk probability below 1% for extended periods during high-incidence scenarios.The results highlight the limitations of natural ventilation and support the transition toward hybrid or mechanically assisted systems. By combining cost-effective sensing with hybrid grey box modelling, buildings can establish digital twins for continuous monitoring and real-time adaptation, ensuring consistent IAQ, thermal comfort and occupant safety. Overall, this thesis provides methodological and operational advances in building performance modelling, establishing a validated framework for low-carbon, adaptive, and post-pandemic-ready educational environments that can inform both facility management and policymaking.
  

• URIOSTE DAZA, SERGIO ALEJANDRO: Advancing Reform of European Union Plant Variety Registration: Institutional, Empirical, and Policy Insights for Sustainable Agri-Food Governance
  
  Author: URIOSTE DAZA, SERGIO ALEJANDRO
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN SUSTAINABILITY
  Department: University Research Institute for Sustainability Science and Technology (IS.UPC)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 29/09/2025
  Reading date: 12/12/2025
  Reading time: 12:00
  Reading place: Sala de Grados de la ESAB
  Thesis director: TAGHOUTI, IBTISSEM | GIL ROIG, JOSE MARIA
  Thesis abstract: Plant variety registration is a critical regulatory gatekeeper between the breeding of improved varieties and their farm-level adoption. In the European Union, however, this system is being outpaced by technological advances and sustainability challenges. Legislative reform is now underway to address these shortcomings, aiming to improve the system’s efficiency by integrating new technologies and sustainability criteria into variety testing and fostering greater harmonisation across Member States. Although these reforms are broadly welcomed, diverging positions among stakeholder groups and EU institutions remain unresolved.Bridging these differences will require robust evidence to inform the ongoing negotiations. This thesis responds to this demand by providing an evidence-based assessment of the current system’s inefficiencies and by proposing realistic reform pathways to help reconcile core tensions between regulatory drag and productivity, divergent stakeholder interests, and the gap between policy goals and farm-level realities. To achieve these objectives, this research presents an integrated framework that engages all key actors in variety testing and combines econometric analysis, decision-analytic modelling, and qualitative analysis.Using a large panel dataset on crop registration and productivity, a fixed-effects analysis provides evidence of regulatory drag on productivity gains, particularly for crops subject to Value for Cultivation and Use testing. Evidence gathered from stakeholders explores into the factors behind these regulatory delays and identifies pathways to overcome systemic inefficiencies, including the uptake of enabling technologies and the harmonisation of testing processes.Subsequently, an analysis of contested policy alternatives is conducted using a replicable framework that integrates expert judgment with public input through multi-criteria decision methods and complementary weighting techniques. The results reveal a clear consensus on prioritising the adoption of technological advancements to improve the system's efficiency and accuracy. However, the analysis also exposes disagreements over efforts to harmonise the system and include sustainability criteria in testing procedures, revealing significant heterogeneity among stakeholder groups.To further investigate the contested issue of adding sustainability criteria in variety testing, a farm-level study is presented to elicit the preferences of apple growers in Spain. Using a Discrete Choice Experiment, farmers' preferences for sustainability traits in new apple varieties were elicited and examined in relation to risk behaviours. The results show a positive but heterogeneous demand for sustainability-related traits, with willingness-to-pay shaped by farm characteristics rather than by measured risk attitudes.Together, these findings demonstrate how data-driven and stakeholder-informed reforms can reduce institutional friction by establishing common ground for negotiation on key aspects of the regulation. Both stakeholder priorities and farmers’ demands point toward the need to prioritise technological uptake and design mechanisms that facilitate the delivery of climate-resilient and resource-efficient varieties. Effective stakeholder involvement and continuous evidence generation are essential for the regulatory path forward. By integrating evidence across institutional, technological, and behavioural layers, this research advances the goals of the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy and provides a transferable framework for future assessments of agricultural policy and innovation.
  

Reading date: 15/12/2025

• MARTÍ ELÍAS, JOAN MARIA: Hidrografies urbanes. Cicle de l’aigua, forma urbana i estructura territorial al la Vall Baixa i al Delta del Llobregat
  
  Author: MARTÍ ELÍAS, JOAN MARIA
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN URBANISM
  Department: Department of Urbanism, Territory and Landscape (DUTP)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 31/10/2025
  Reading date: 15/12/2025
  Reading time: 17:00
  Reading place: ETSAB (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona) - Planta Baja - Sala de GradosAv. Diagonal, 649-651 - 08028 - Barcelona
  Thesis director: CROSAS ARMENGOL, CARLES
  Thesis abstract: The research dives in the relationship between urban morphology and water cycle from an ecosystemic perspective that integrates physical, territorial, and infrastructural components. The objective is to demonstrate that urban morphology is directly related with hydrological dynamics and that, therefore, it can become a key tool for redefining water management strategies in metropolitan contexts.This dissertation is grounded in the intensive exploration of a specific territory (la Vall Baixa and the Delta del Llobregat) through five successive approaches, addressing the territory from the metropolitan scale down to local urban fabrics. This process constructs a multi-scalar reading that relates the physical, infrastructural, and morphological conditions of the city to its hydrological dynamics.The territorial approach is enriched by a historical and conceptual dimension that reconstructs a genealogy of urban thought in an ecosystem perspective, based on figures and projects that conceived the city as a living system, dependent on its exchanges with the territory. The research also revisits nineteenth-century projects that, with a hygienist outlook, anticipated “proto-ecological” visions. In this regard, Garcia Fària’s proposal for the sanitation of the Eixample and the diversion of the river Llobregat constitutes a paradigmatic case that anticipates an integrated territorial interpretation, establishing a valuable precedent for contemporary urban planning practice.On this basis, the final stretch of the river Llobregat is studied, revealing the complexity of a hybrid morphology resulting from the superimposition of natural and anthropic logics. The river is presented as an ecological and productive infrastructure, a space where the persistence of hydraulic and agricultural traces coexists with metropolitan urbanization pressures. From here, the research turns to the underground dimension, analyzing the delta aquifer as a key element for environmental balance. Infiltration dynamics, alterations derived from urbanization, and opportunities for the reconversion of industrial and logistical spaces based on hydrogeological criteria are examined. The three-dimensional reading of the territory makes it possible to link surface and subsoil and to propose infiltration and regulation devices that restore natural functions.In the central part of the dissertation, these criteria are applied at an intermediate analytical scale, proposing the sub-basin as a functional unit of analysis and design, due to its capacity to integrate topographical continuities, road structures, and open spaces. On this basis, a parametric methodology is developed, articulated into six actions (capture, consumption, treatment, infiltration, retention, and reuse) applied to multiple metropolitan fabrics. A multi-scalar analysis makes it possible to identify hydromorphological indicators that guide design decisions according to context and urban structure. The result is an operative atlas that proposes ranges of intervention and adaptive criteria for urban transformation guided by hydrological principles.Finally, the research advances a paradigm shift: water becomes a design vector, not merely a technical constraint. Public space, the road network, and urban voids are recognized as multifunctional water devices, while the underground dimension is considered an active and inseparable layer of the urban system. This three-dimensional and complex vision relates metabolism and form, while articulating both regional scale and urban project.Overall, the dissertation contributes to creating a culture of urban design that integrates water as a vector of intelligibility and ordering, where the term “hidrografia” is not understood in the traditional sense of describing river courses, but rather as a critical instrument for mapping the presence, movement, and structuring capacity of water in all its forms.