Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
The Nonlinear Tuned Vibration Absorber (NOVIB)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1316440.0
EU funding (EUR): 1316440.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Even after more than one century of flight, both civil and military aircraft are still plagued by major vibration problems. A well-known example is the external-store induced flutter of the F-16 fighter aircraft. Such dynamical phenomena, commonly known as aeroelastic instabilities, result from the transfer of energy from the free stream to the structure and can lead to limit cycle oscillations, a phenomenon with no linear counterpart. Since nonlinear dynamical systems theory is not yet mature, the inherently nonlinear nature of these oscillations renders their mitigation a particularly difficult problem. The only practical solution to date is to limit aircraft flight envelope to regions where these instabilities are not expected to occur, as verified by intensive and expensive flight campaigns. This limitation results in a severe decrease in both aircraft efficiency and performance. At the heart of this project is a fundamental change in paradigm: although nonlinearity is usually seen as an enemy, I propose to control - and even suppress - aeroelastic instability through the intentional use of nonlinearity. This approach has the potential to bring about a major change in aircraft design and will be achieved thanks to the development of the nonlinear tuned vibration absorber, a new, rigorous nonlinear counterpart of the linear tuned vibration absorber. This work represents a number of significant challenges, because the novel functionalities brought by the intentional use of nonlinearity can be accompanied by adverse nonlinear dynamical effects. The successful mitigation of these unwanted nonlinear effects will be a major objective of our proposed research; it will require achieving both theoretical and technical advances to make it possible. A specific effort will be made to demonstrate experimentally the theoretical findings of this research with extensive wind tunnel testing and practical implementation of the nonlinear tuned vibration absorber. Finally, nonlinear instabilities such as limit cycle oscillations can be found in a number of non-aircraft applications including in bridges, automotive disc brakes and machine tools. The nonlinear tuned vibration absorber could also find uses in resolving problems in these applications, thus ensuring the generic character of the project.

Keywords: nonlinearity,vibration,aircraft,bifurcation
Riddle of light induced degradation in silicon photovoltaics (SOLARX)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Finland
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 845770.0
EU funding (EUR): 845770.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The sun provides enough energy in one minute to supply the world's energy needs for one year. The grand challenge is to turn this enormous energy potential into electricity in a cost-efficient way. So far, silicon has been most successful at this – but we are still very far away from what is achievable. One of the major problems, which is currently limiting the state-of-the-art photovoltaic solar cells, is related to the material degradation under sun light. I address this issue from a novel perspective: I study the possibility that the root cause for the degradation is related to the interaction of light with copper ions. The cornerstone of the proposal is to transfer my special knowhow from microelectronics to photovoltaics related to controlling copper behaviour in silicon. My proposal is against the commonly accepted theory, however, it could unveil many mysteries related to the degradation phenomenon. Moreover, if successful, the approach could lead to a rather simple solution in avoiding power loss: implementing charge on the surface to attract the copper ions. In this project I aim at verifying my hypotheses, formulating a new theory regarding the chemical reactions behind the degradation and finally demonstrating a method that allows fabrication of stable yet cheap silicon solar cells having potential for more than 30% power increase.

Keywords: light induced degradation,material science,photovoltaics,defect engineering,boron-oxygen complex,copper,silicon
Sophisticated Program Analysis, Declaratively (SPADE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Greece
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 75.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1042615.6
EU funding (EUR): 1042615.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Static program analysis is a fundamental computing challenge. We have recently demonstrated significant advantages from expressing analyses for Java declaratively, in the Datalog language. This means that the algorithm is in a form that resembles a pure logical specification, rather than a step-by-step definition of the execution. The declarative specification does not merely cover the main logic of the algorithm, but its entire implementation, including the handling of complex semantic features (such as native methods, reflection, threads) of the Java language. Surprisingly, the declarative specification can be made to execute up to an order of magnitude faster than the dominant pre-existing implementations of the same algorithms. Armed with this past experience, the SPADE project aims to develop a next-generation approach to the design and declarative implementation of static program analyses. This will include a) a substantially more flexible notion of context-sensitive analysis, which allows context to vary according to introspective observations; b) a flow-sensitive analysis framework that can be used as the basis for dataflow analysis; c) an approach to producing parallel implementations of analyses by exploiting the parallelism inherent in the declarative specification; d) an exploration of adapting analysis logic to multiple languages and paradigms, including C (using the LLVM infrastructure), functional languages (e.g., Scheme), and dynamic languages (notably, Javascript); e) client analyses algorithms (e.g., may-happen-in-parallel, bug finding analyses such as race and atomicity-violation detectors, etc.) expressed modularly over the underlying substrate of points-to analysis. The work will have applications to multiple languages and a variety of analyses. Concretely, our precise and scalable analysis algorithms will enhance optimizing compilers, program analyzers for error detection, and program understanding tools.

Keywords: programming languages,program analysis,static analysis,declarative languages
Transport at the microscopic interface (TRAM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The research objective is to study and model membrane separation processes at the microscopic scale. I propose to exploit microfluidic platforms that contain a certain membrane separation challenge to be studied; i.e. biofouling, overlimiting current, and concentration polarization. Each challenge will be the topic for an individual PhD student.

Keywords: membrane,microfluidic
Fabrication and characterization of dielectric encapsulated millions of ordered kilometer-long nanostructures and their applications (INFIBRENANOSTRUCTURE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2017-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1495400.0
EU funding (EUR): 1495400.0
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

The objective of this project is the realization of a radically new nanowire fabrication technique, and exploration of its potential for nanowire based science and technology. The proposed method involves fabrication of unusually long, ordered nanowire and nanotube arrays in macroscopic fibres by means of an iterative thermal co-drawing process. Starting with a macroscopic rod with an annular hole tightly fitted with another rod of another compatible material, by successive thermal drawing we obtain arrays of nanowires embedded in fibres. With the method, wide range of materials, e.g. semiconductors, polymers, metals, can be turned into ordered nanorods, nanowires, nanotubes in various cross-sectional geometries. Main challenges are the thermal drawing steps that require critical matching of the viscoelastic properties of the protective cover with the encapsulated materials, and the liquid instability problems and phase intermixing with higher temperatures and smaller feature sizes that require high thermal and mechanical precision. Initially, fabrication by drawing will begin with soft amorphous semiconductors, phase change materials, polymers of interest in high temperature polymers, followed by a wider range of materials, low melting temperature metals, metals and common semiconductors (Si, Ge) in silica glass matrices. In this way nanowires that are ordered, easily accessible and hermetically sealed in a dielectric encapsulation will be obtained in high volumes. Potentially, these nanowires are advantages over on-chip nanowires in building flexible out of plane geometries, light weight, wearable and disposable devices. Ultimately, attaining ordered arrays of 1-D nanostructures in an extended flexible fibre with high yields will facilitate sought-after but up-to-now difficult applications such as the large area nanowire electronics and photonics, nanowire based scalable phase-change memory, nanowire photovoltaics, and emerging cell-nanowire interfacing.

Keywords: nanowires,nanotubes,nanotechnology,fiber drawing,large area electronics,photonics,nanofabrication
Ultrafast X-Ray Tomography of Turbulent Bubble Flows (XFLOW)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1172640.0
EU funding (EUR): 1172640.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Multiphase reactors are omnipresent in chemical engineering and dominate today's manufacturing of chemical products such that they are present in most of our daily products. That implies a huge economic and ecologic impact of the reactor performance. The basic idea of a multiphase reactor is to contact chemical precursors and catalysts in a sufficient time for the reaction to proceed, but reactor performance is crucially affected by the complex reactor hydrodynamics. A proper optimization would imply that multiphase flows are adequately understood. Gas bubbled into a pool of liquid is the simplest example of a multiphase reactor. Bubble columns or distillation columns, however, house millions of bubbles emerging in swarms with interactions such as coalescence and breakage events that determine the whole process behaviour. The understanding of such disperse gas-liquid flows is still fragmentary and requires a ground-breaking update. The aim of the project is to apply the worldwide fastest tomographic imaging method to study such turbulent gas-liquid dispersed flows in column reactors such as bubble columns and tray columns. The project intends to provide unique insights into the bubble swarm behaviour at operating conditions that have been hidden so far from the engineer's eyes. The project is foreseen to enhance the fundamental understanding of hydrodynamic parameters, evolving flow patterns and coherent structures as well as coalescence and breakage mechanisms, regardless of if the systems are pressurized, filled with particle packings, operated with organic liquid, slurries or with internals. The interdisciplinary team shall re-establish the process intensification route for multiphase reactors by a new understanding of small-scale phenomena, their mathematical description and extrapolation towards the reactor scale and therewith providing a tool for reactor optimization.

Keywords: multiphase flow,multiphase reactor,x-ray tomography,gas-liquid dispersed flow,bubble column,computational fluid dynamics,breakage,coalescence,hydrodynamics
Hybrid quantum networks for spin coherent technologies (HYSCORE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Condensed matter physics
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-12-01
End date: 2017-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Spins in solids are at the heart of fundamental physical phenomena such as magnetism. Today, they are harnessed in a range of technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging and spintronics for recording media. The revolutionary potential of future quantum technologies has fuelled research efforts to gain control of the quantum nature of spins. Thanks to a string of recent breakthroughs, it is now possible to initialize and read out individual spins in a solid, and to manipulate their dynamics using carefully defined control fields. However, all experiments to date have been limited to “open-loop” control on locally interacting few-spin systems, precluding efficient correction of noise and errors and preventing long-distance applications. My HYSCORE project will realize two critical breakthroughs: “closing the loop” by performing quantum feedback and generating quantum entanglement between remote spins. These goals will allow for entering a new era, in which robustly controlled spin registers are connected to form true quantum networks. To achieve these ambitious goals, I will exploit and combine the key strengths of different types of quantum information carriers: the robustness of nuclear spins for storage and core computational tasks, the optical interface of electron spins for initializing and reading the nuclear spin registers, and the mobility and coherence of photons for establishing truly long-distance links. Two promising solid-state platforms will be studied: nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond and fluorine donors in zinc selenide. If successful, HYSCORE will yield novel methods for closed-loop quantum control, fundamental insights into quantum measurement, robust multi-qubit registers in a solid, and the establishment of elementary long-distance quantum networks.

Keywords: electron spin,nuclear spin,defect centers,quantum networks,quantum feedback
Unravelling the physical basis of morphogenesis in plants (PHYMORPH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Condensed matter physics
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2017-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1401022.8
EU funding (EUR): 1401022.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Morphogenesis is the remarkable process by which a developing organism acquires its shape. While molecular and genetic studies have been highly successful in explaining the cellular basis of development and the role of biochemical gradients in coordinating cell fate, understanding morphogenesis remains a central challenge for both biophysics and developmental biology. Indeed, shape is imposed by structural elements, so that an investigation of morphogenesis must address how these elements are controlled at the cell level, and how the mechanical properties of these elements lead to specific growth patterns. Using plants as model systems, we will tackle the following questions: i. Does the genetic identity of a cell correspond to a mechanical identity? ii. Do the mechanical properties of the different cell domains predict shape changes? iii. How does the intrinsic stochasticity of cell mechanics and cell growth lead to reproducible shapes? To do so, we will develop a unique combination of physical and biological approaches. For instance, we will measure simultaneously physical properties and growth in specific cell groups by building a novel tool coupling atomic force microscopy and upright confocal microscopy; we will integrate the data within physical growth models; and we will validate our approaches using genetic and pharmacological alterations of cell mechanics. In plants, shape is entirely determined by the extracellular matrix (cell walls) and osmotic pressure. From that perspective, plants cells involve fewer mechanical parameters than animal cells and are thus perfectly suited to study the physical basis of morphogenesis. Therefore we propose such a study within the shoot apical meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana, a small population of stem cells that orchestrates the aerial architecture of the plant. This work will unravel the physical basis of morphogenesis and shed light on how stochastic cell behaviour can lead to robust shapes.

Keywords: morphogenesis development
Physicochemical principles of efficient information processing in biological cells (PCCELL)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2013-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1397328.0
EU funding (EUR): 1397328.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Biological cellular function relies on the coordination of many information processing steps in which specific biomolecular complexes are formed. But how can proteins and ligands find their targets in extremely crowded cellular membranes or cytosol? Here, I propose that intracellular signal processing depends upon the spatiotemporal order of molecules arising from “dynamical sorting”, i.e. no stable structure may exist at any time and yet the molecules might be ordered at all times. I propose to investigate the existence and the physicochemical driving forces of such dynamical sorting mechanisms in selected neuronal synaptic membrane proteins that must be tightly coordinated during neurotransmission and recovery. To this end, massive atomistic and coarse-grained molecular simulations will be combined with statistical mechanical theory, producing predictions to be experimentally validated through our collaborators. The main methodological challenge of this proposal is the infamous sampling problem: Even with immense computational effort, unbiased molecular dynamics trajectory lengths are at most microseconds for the protein systems considered here. This is insufficient to calculate relevant states, probabilities, and rates for these systems. Based on recent mathematical and computational groundwork developed by us and others, I propose to develop enhanced sampling methods that will yield an effective speedup of at least 4 orders of magnitude over current simulations. This will allow protein-ligand and protein-protein interactions to be sampled efficiently using atomistic models, thus having far reaching impact on the field. The proposed project is at the forefront of an interdisciplinary field, spanning traditional areas such as physical chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and biology. The project claims fundamental advances in both simulation techniques and in the understanding of the physicochemical principles that govern the functionality of the cell

Keywords: interdisciplinary research proposal writting for computation chemistry / biophysical chemistry reader merits in the cv ar best judged by an interdisciplinary committee
Purely-elastic flow instabilities and transition to elastic turbulence in microscale flows of complex fluids (ELASTIC-TURBULENCE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Portugal
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111012, 2012)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2018-01-31
Duration (months): 64.0
Total project cost (EUR): 994110.0
EU funding (EUR): 994110.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Flows of complex fluids, such as many biological fluids and most synthetic fluids, are common in our daily life and are very important from an industrial perspective. Because of their inherent nonlinearity, the flow of complex viscoelastic fluids often leads to counterintuitive and complex behaviour and, above critical conditions, can prompt flow instabilities even under low Reynolds number conditions which are entirely absent in the corresponding Newtonian fluid flows. The primary goal of this project is to substantially expand the frontiers of our current knowledge regarding the mechanisms that lead to the development of such purely-elastic flow instabilities, and ultimately to understand the transition to so-called “elastic turbulence”, a turbulent-like phenomenon which can arise even under inertialess flow conditions. This is an extremely challenging problem, and to significantly advance our knowledge in such important flows these instabilities will be investigated in a combined manner encompassing experiments, theory and numerical simulations. Such a holistic approach will enable us to understand the underlying mechanisms of those instabilities and to develop accurate criteria for their prediction far in advance of what we could achieve with either approach separately. A deep understanding of the mechanisms generating elastic instabilities and subsequent transition to elastic turbulence is crucial from a fundamental point of view and for many important practical applications involving engineered complex fluids, such as the design of microfluidic mixers for efficient operation under inertialess flow conditions, or the development of highly efficient micron-sized energy management and mass transfer systems. This research proposal will create a solid basis for the establishment of an internationally-leading research group led by the PI studying flow instabilities and elastic turbulence in complex fluid flows.

Keywords: elastic turbulence,computational rheology,viscoelastic fluids,computational fluid dynamics,microfluidics,instabilities.