Ignasi de Pouplana Sardà is a Civil Engineer by the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) since 2014. He is also a Master in Structural & Construction Engineering and a Ph.D. in Structural Analysis by the same university since 2015 and 2018, respectively.
His research career started in 2012 at the International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE) when, in the context of the Civil Engineering bachelor thesis, he worked on the implementation and validation of a new code of the Discrete Element Method (DEM). In 2014 he started working on continuum damage mechanics in the field of the Finite Element Method (FEM), and developed a new approach for the failure analysis of quasi-brittle materials by combining non-local damage models with adaptive mesh refinement techniques.
He developed the Ph.D. with the research focused on fluid-structure interaction in porous and fractured media. Topics of major interest included: stable analysis of the fluid flux in porous media, fracture of the solid matrix driven by the fluid pressure, and adaptivity of the mesh to propagate fractures in the porous domain by using non-local damage models along with quasi-zero-thickness interface elements.
In the last years he has participated at CIMNE in various research projects and contracts with industry applied to different engineering problems, e.g. monitoring of stresses during the construction process of concrete arch dams, optimization of drill bit geometries for Particle Impact Drilling (PID) technology, prediction of the final stress state of metallic pieces during casting processes, quantification of sand production in well completions, and prediction of NO2 concentration in urban areas, to name a few. Such an experience has been accompanied by the publication of more than 10 JCR articles and the supervision of 2 PhD theses.
Ignasi is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Strength of Materials and Structural Engineering (RMEE) in UPC, participating in several courses related to structural analysis and strength of materials in the Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE).
His research is now focused on the extension of the interface elements formulation for different contact applications, and the generalization of the poromechanics solver presented in his PhD thesis for multiphase flows. The main objective behind such a work will be the development of a new software for the simulation of CO2 storage process.