Christophe Ancey

Christophe Ancey is currently an associate professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
He is the director of Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (LHE), focusing on the research on sediment transport and granular flows.
==Education and Career[==
Christophe Ancey receives his engineering degree from Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble and a doctoral degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris. He conducted research on the rheology of granular flows under the supervision of Pierre Evesque and Philippe Coussot from 1994 to 1997.
He joined École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as an assistant professor in 2003, and was promoted to an associated professor in fluid mechanics in 2009.
Christophe Ancey services as an associate editor of Water Resources Research and Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.
==Scientific Research==
Christophe Ancey has published more than 80 scientific papers. He is active in investigating the problems of sediment transport and granular flows mainly through experiments and theoretical analysis.
- sediment transport: Movement of sediments is essential to the erosion or deposition along the riverbed. Christophe Ancey proposed a theoretical model for sediment transport based on population dynamics by treating death as deposition, birth as entrainment, and emigration as motion. This model has been tested against experimental data and modified to match field observations. Intermittent process of sediment transport, interplays between bedload transport fluctuations and bedforms, and methods for estimating mean bedload transport rates are within the research scope.
- particle segregation: The separation of particles with different physical properties under external force is called particle segregation. This phenomenon is quite common in industries (mining, pharmacy, agriculture) and essential to product quality. The nonlinear advection-diffusion equation is utilized as a theoretical tool to analyze particle segregation. In experiments of particle segregation, the refractive index matching technique is developed for obtaining a uniform refractive index domain, therefore inside structures of particle segregation can be visualized by using laser and fluorescent dye.
- rheology of granular flow: The behavior of granular flow is unique because granular flows deform with an external force, which is also known as plasticity. Physical properties of granular flow such as yield stress, viscosity, the relationship between strain stress \gamma and shear stress \tau are within the investigation scope of Ancey's group. It is shown that depth-averaged (Saint-Venant) equation doesn't perform well in the dam-break problem owing to the complicated dependence of bottom shear stress on flow velocity.
==Teaching and Supervision==
Christophe Ancey teaches 4 courses at EPFL, which are Fluid mechanics (bachelor level), Flood and dam break waves (master level), Hydrological risks and structures (master level), and Similarity and Transport Phenomena in Fluid (doctor level). 
More than 20 doctor students have been supervised by Christophe Ancey.
==Business==
In 1997, Christophe Ancey set up a consulting company named Toraval with Claude Charlier for engineering contracting in torrent protection and avalanches. Two books published by Christophe Ancey serve as the guide of risk management on avalanches.
==Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (LHE)==
Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (LHE) dates back to the Hydraulic Testing Laboratory established by Alfred Stucky in 1928 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and becomes a hydraulics laboratory at EPFL in 1968. The laboratory is split into two parts in 1982, the one known as Hydraulic Constructions Laboratory (LCH) mainly focuses on water constructions projects, and the other one is Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (LHE) currently led by Christophe Ancey. LHE mainly focuses on environmental hydraulics problems with an emphasis on the geophysical flows in the Alps.
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